Communications Service Providers Face Networking Challenges
The rapid expansion of broadband access technologies – including fixed-wireless, 5G, and cloud solutions – has elevated the demand for increased capacity within IP access and aggregation networks. However capacity expansion is insufficient to meet the demands, as there are several other factors that are of critical importance.
Digital Transformation
The evolution of digital transformation, coupled with the migration of vital enterprise applications to cloud and edge environments, has amplified the necessity for more predictable and reliable connectivity.
IoT Proliferation
The proliferation of Internet of Things (IoT) devices has significantly widened the global network threat landscape, underscoring the need for enhanced network security capabilities throughout the entire network.
Critical Infrastructure
The recognition of global networks as essential assets for businesses and society places an increased demand for IP connectivity and infrastructure services to be exceptionally dependable, resilient, and available at all times.
Sustainability and Efficiency
With global sustainability initiatives and the escalating cost of energy, there’s a growing need for minimizing equipment footprints and energy consumption.
In response to these challenges, Nokia has introduced its latest custom routing silicon family, the FPcx. This innovative solution is specifically crafted to assist communication service providers (CSPs) and mission-critical enterprises in meeting these demands. It boasts advanced features and the scalability necessary for IP access, aggregation, and edge networks.
What Is Nokia FPcx Routing Silicon?
The FPcx family of fully programmable routing silicon is groundbreaking technology that leverages Nokia’s renowned high-performance and feature-rich FP silicon. It’s finely tuned for IP access, aggregation, and smaller edge applications. It serves as a solution for organizations seeking advanced routing capabilities in appropriately sized platforms that prioritize deterministic connectivity, end-to-end reliability, resiliency, and security within their IP access, aggregation, and edge networks. This empowers them to provide secure, guaranteed, and sustainable services.
FPcx diversifies the Nokia IP Routing portfolio, extending the value of FP silicon to a broader range of smaller capacity routing applications. It ensures performance predictability and highly reliable network services. The full programmability it offers allows for rapid adaptation to new protocols and maximizes Return on Investment (ROI) by extending the lifespan of network equipment.
Secure IP Networks
Network security must now be an integral part of IP network design and deployment, rather than an afterthought. To facilitate the implementation of new mission-critical applications and safeguard services and infrastructure links, IP networks must offer both high-performance and secure connectivity.
Nokia prioritizes security by offering in-line advanced filtering capabilities for DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) mitigation. Large-scale ACLs (Access Control Lists) provide extensive match criteria flexibility, while line-rate encryption (MACsec/ANYsec) ensures advanced IP network security. This configuration safeguards networks against DDoS attacks and shields services and internal network links from potential security threats.
Instead of relying on costly and complex “bolt-on” network security models, FPcx-powered 7730 SXR routing platforms are equipped with advanced, built-in security capabilities that don’t compromise performance. This includes robust support for advanced filtering to counteract DDoS attacks. When combined with Nokia Deepfield Defender, these platforms function as precise sensors and mitigation tools.
ANYsec provides line-rate encryption in a low-latency, service-oriented manner, available either hop-by-hop or end-to-end as a security overlay. It can be used to secure internal network links or to ensure secure services by enabling encryption precisely where and when it’s needed. This comprehensive security approach ensures the network’s integrity and the safety of your services without compromising performance.
Energy Efficiency
The demand for energy-efficient systems has increased with the popularity of non-line-rate systems. However, many operators believe that achieving energy efficiency necessitates sacrificing capabilities such as scale, statistics, network visibility, buffering, Quality of Service (QoS), and deterministic performance while trying to increase throughput.
For critical IP networks, energy efficiency without high performance is not acceptable.
FPcx silicon redefines energy efficiency by providing leading energy-saving features without compromising performance. It delivers typical energy consumption at a remarkable rate of 0.1W per Gig, all while maintaining full functionality. Notable energy-saving attributes include clock gating, the use of 112G SerDes to support higher-density and more energy-efficient optics (including coherent pluggable optics), and simplex In-Service Software Upgrades (ISSU) with zero packet loss.
Additional Benefits of Nokia FPcx Routing Silicon
Nokia’s FPcx routing silicon represents a significant step forward in routing innovation, building upon the company’s rich history of in-house silicon development. It brings a wealth of flexible capabilities, energy efficiency, and network security features similar to the esteemed Nokia FP5 routing silicon. FPcx powers a new family of IP routers, the Nokia 7730 Service Interconnect Router (SXR), designed to make service routing economically viable for CSP and mission-critical enterprise networks.
Full Programmability
FPcx offers a fully programmable data path with no hardcoded forwarding logic. This means there are no specialized engines for each logic core, and cores can be reconfigured in various ways to add or enhance performance logic. This adaptability ensures it can meet evolving networking requirements without the need for hardware replacements.
Support for Evolving Standards
It can quickly adapt to evolving network standards like G-SID compression for SRv6 and slicing ID. These functions can be enabled through a simple microcode upgrade, making it highly responsive to industry advancements.
Performance Certainty
With IP networks facing constant traffic growth and unpredictable loads, performance reliability is crucial. FPcx, like its Nokia FP predecessors, ensures deterministic performance. This means it guarantees router throughput under all conditions, providing operators with the confidence to deliver assured services supported by stringent Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
Assured Services and Network Applications
FPcx empowers operators to provide innovative services with confidence, enhancing customer retention and attracting new clients. It supports a wide range of use cases and traffic types by combining powerful service capabilities with an extensive set of features. These features include hierarchical Quality of Service (H-QoS) for fine-grained QoS enforcement, deep buffers, and numerous queues, policers, and counters to enable enhanced telemetry and uncompromising network visibility.
Design Requirements for Critical IP Networks
FPcx enables network designs that do not require trade-offs in performance, capacity, scalability, or energy consumption. Operators no longer need to make compromises or settle for a reduced feature set with unpredictable performance.
As the cornerstone of a new generation of IP routers, FPcx is optimized to meet speed and capacity requirements while extending routing capabilities cost-effectively into access, aggregation, and distributed edge networks. It also significantly influences network efficiency, reliability, sustainability, and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
Considerations when designing a network with FPcx Routing Silicon include:
Performance
Deterministic and predictable performance under real-world network conditions is crucial. This entails avoiding shortcomings like partial buffering and the utilization of High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) for tables, which are essential for consistent performance.
Scalability
The scalability aspect should be multidimensional, extending beyond router capacity and density. The silicon must be capable of scaling access control lists (ACLs), Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), IP, and MAC addresses concurrently.
Energy Efficiency
Considerations regarding energy efficiency should encompass not only the silicon itself but also the design of line cards, upgradability, and mechanical innovations that support a full density of interfaces in the router. Energy-efficient solutions are essential for sustainability.
Assured Services
For assured services, the silicon should feature multi-layer hierarchical Quality of Service (QoS), deep buffers, a large scale of queues, policers, and granular counters. These components are vital for maintaining service quality.
Enhanced Analytics and Telemetry
Real-time telemetry and enhanced analytics require silicon with a substantial number of statistical counters to provide comprehensive network visibility and control, addressing the evolving needs of network monitoring and management.
Network Security
Silicon should support a security-oriented approach to protect the IP network without compromising router performance. It should also create opportunities for delivering new services while maintaining network integrity.
Future-Proofing
Silicon should be designed to accommodate new performance features and meet future hardware requirements without necessitating a complete silicon upgrade, ensuring that investments remain relevant.
IP Routers Supported By FPcx Routing Silicon
FPcx empowers Nokia’s 7730 Service Interconnect Router (SXR) family, a new generation of IP routers optimized for IP access, aggregation, and edge networks. This router family offers a range of models, each tailored to specific performance and capacity requirements:
- 7730 SXR-1-32D
- 7730 SXR-1x-44S
- 7730 SXR-1d-32D
- 7730 SXR-1s-60S
- 7730 SXR-R6D
- 7730 SXR-R6dl
As for supported speeds and interfaces, the FPcx routing silicon provides impressive versatility, accommodating interfaces ranging from 1GE (Gigabit Ethernet) to 400GE (400 Gigabit Ethernet).
Additionally, it offers flexible breakout options, including 4x10G, 4x25G, 2x100G, 4x100G, and 1x400G.
This flexibility enables CSPs to meet a broad spectrum of interface and density requirements, allowing them to adapt to various networking scenarios.
About Infinity Technology Solutions
Infinity Technology Solutions specializes in broadband and critical communications infrastructure development. We help our channel partners design and deploy private wireless, microwave backhaul, IP/MPLS, and optical networking technologies.
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