The Right Concept of Consolidation

Workload consolidation for service provider data centers is sometimes misunderstood as expanding hardware footprint. Virtualized network infrastructures like SDN or NFV orchestration models has indeed cut down the investment in physical hardware; however, there are still discussions about scaling data centers with additional hardware systems like storage devices in order to keep up with the promised application performance and QoS (Quality of Service). This misconception defeats the economic purpose of deploying uCPE white box server.

When more and more hardware systems are connected to the uCPE, it means the network infrastructure has become more complicated to monitor and manage, and eventually the scalability and agility will be concerned. Economic wise, this will lead to higher expensive in purchasing additional hardware devices to keep up with the promised performance and serviceability.

Therefore, when speaking of workload consolidation, it is necessary to look into the application side, which means, application consolidation, by allocating the resources across mission-critical and routine applications. For instance, when a service provider implements a new application or service, the IT manager shall not plan additional budget to buy hardware-based system like NAND Flash based servers, but instead assigning threshold for each applications. In other words, mission-critical applications shall be assigned with more hardware resources.

Workload consolidation, or some may refer it as application consolidation, shall promise the launch of new service or application within minutes or hours, instead of weeks of additional hardware implementations. In short, QoS shall be achieved by intelligent consolidation.

Driven by the economic and capability, the optimal uCPE shall be powered by Intel® multi-core processors to run virtualized applications. The open architecture nature of the Intel® driven uCPE allows automated, software-defined orchestration that can reduce manual provisioning and address the challenges of today’s cloud data centers. Resources can be efficiently and intelligently allocated across computing, storage, security, and mission-critical network functions. Meanwhile, threshold can be assigned for particular applications. Thus, deployment time of a newly-added service or application can be minimized.

Benefits of All-Integrated uCPE

From the discussion above, service providers shall take the approach of integrating all virtualized services into uCPE, spanning from cloud to the edge. In fact, this is the essence of SDN by converging appliances through virtualization and there are additional benefits:

  • Run virtual network functions (VNFs) for branch network
  • End-to-End security mitigation
  • Deployment or delete of a service or an application instantly by software means
  • Automated management and orchestration
  • Zero-touch deployment
  • Software-defined routing

Recommended uCPE Solution

Performance is one of the primary considerations when choosing the optimal white-box server, and for SMEs (small and medium enterprises) and branch offices particularly, Lanner’s FW-7551SE fits the bill. Not only the compact desktop offers the performance needed, it also comes with virtualization-optimized features to function as the vCPE/uCPE device. FW-7551SEis empowered by Intel DPDK to accelerate performances in running automated VNF orchestrations on any server setting, no additional hardware required to keep up the QoS.

FW-7551SE, powered by Intel multi-core processor, allows IT management to deploy or delete a service or an application without excessive manual efforts. In fact, the VNF management can be orchestrated as well.

Regarding network security, FW-7551SE series accommodates TPM (Trusted Platform Module) and Intel® QuickAssist Technology by options. In terms of wireless connectivity, FW-7551SEboasts 3G/4G/LTE links with dual SIM cards or bandwidth expansion option by additional modules. In short, FW-7551SE can be deployed in a zero-touch provisioning approach for enterprises and service providers SD-WAN with minimal setup time and efforts.

Featured Product


FW-7551SE

Connectivity-ready vCPE/CPE Appliance that Delivers Network Simplicity and Agility

CPU Intel® Atom® C2358/C2558/C2758 (Rangeley)
Chipset SoC

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