Intel has released three reference architectures for software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV) for the IT and telecom industries.

These reference architectures, aimed for the telecommunications, cloud data center and enterprise data center infrastructure market segments, combine open standards for SDN and NFV with Intel hardware and software. Integrating SDN and NFV on standard x86 platforms allows lowering the acquisition and management costs as well as enabling new services, says the company.

ISVs, OEMs and service providers building solutions on top of Intel’s switch reference architecture, including ATT Foundry, Big Switch Network, Chunghwa Telecom, HP, NEC, NTT Data, Quanta, Super Micro and VMware.

The Intel Open Network Platform Switch Reference Design

Codenamed Seacliff Trail, the Intel Open Network Platform (ONP) Switch Reference Design is based on scalable Intel processors, Intel Ethernet Switch 6700 series and Intel Communications Chipset 89xx series. 

The ONP Switch Reference Design will include Wind River Open Network Software (ONS), an open and customizable network switching software stack using Wind River Linux.  

It is currently available.

The Intel Data Plane Development Kit Accelerated Open vSwitch

Intel is executing a project aimed at improving small packet throughput, re-creating the kernel forwarding module (data plane) to take advantage of the Intel DPDK library.

The Intel DPDK Accelerated Open vSwitch is planned to initially be released with the Intel ONP Server Reference Design in the third quarter of this year.

The Intel Open Network Platform Server Reference Design

This server reference platform, codenamed Sunrise Trail, is based on the Intel Xeon processor, Intel 82599 Ethernet Controller and Intel Communications Chipset 89xx series.

The ONP Server Reference Design enables virtual appliance workloads on standard Intel architecture servers using SDN and NFV open standards for datacenter and telecom. Wind River Open Network Software includes an Intel DPDK Accelerated Open vSwitch, fast packet acceleration and deep packet inspection capabilities, as well as support for open SDN standards such as OpenFlow, Open vSwitch and OpenStack.

The project is in development now: the first alpha series is slated to be available in the second half of this year