On Thu, Aug 6, 2020 at 11:52 AM Mark Tinka <mark.ti...@seacom.com> wrote:
> On 6/Aug/20 17:43, Mel Beckman wrote: > > > I don’t think you’re going to move those volumes with Intel X86 chips. > > For example, AT&T’s Open Compute Project whitebox architecture is > > based on Broadcom Jericho2 processors, with aggregate on-chip > > throughput of 9.6 Tbps, and which support 24 ports at 400 Gbps each. > > This is where AT&T’s 5G slicing is taking place. > > My point exactly. > > If much of the cloud-native is happening on servers with Intel chips, > and part of the micro-services is to also provide data plane > functionality at that level, I don't see how it can scale for legacy > mobile operators. It might make sense for niche, start-up mobile > operators with little-to-no traffic serving some unique case, but not > the classics we have today. Isn't this just, really: 1) some network gear with SDN bits that live on the next-rack over servers/kubes 2) services (microservices!) that do the SDN functions AND NFV functions AND billing (extending IMS to the edge etc) > Now, if they are writing their own bits of code on or for white boxes > based on Broadcom et al, not sure that falls in the realm of > "micro-services with Kubernetes". But I could be wrong. the discussion (I think) got conflated here... there's: "network equipment" and "microservices equipment" (service equipment?) and really 'I need a fast, cheap network device I can dynamically program for things which don't really smell like 'DFZ size LPM routing"' is just code for: "sdn control the switch, sending traffic either at 'default' or based on 'service data' some microservice architecture of NFV things. > > Intel has developed nothing like this, and has had to resort to > > acquisition of multi-chip solutions to get these speeds (e.g. its > > purchase of Barefoot Networks Tofino2 IP). > > > > The X86 architecture is too complex and carries too much > > non-network-related baggage to be a serious player in 5G slicing. > > Which we, as network operators, can all agree on. > > But the 5G folk seem to have other ideas, so I just want to see what is > actually truth, and what's noise. 5g folk seem to have lots of good marketing, and reasons to sell complexity to their carrier 'partners' (captive prisoners? maybe that's too pejorative :) )