Altera has joined the Open Platform for NFV (OPNFV), a community-led, industry-supported, open-source reference platform for network function virtualisation (NFV). NFV uses IT technologies to virtualise entire classes of network node functions into building blocks that may be connected, or chained, to create communication services.
Joining working groups inside the OPNFV, Altera are to expand the use of FPGA accelerators in virtual machines running different software and processes on top of industry-standard, high-volume servers, storage and cloud computing infrastructure.
"FPGAs can reduce capital and operational expenditures, speed service and improve product introduction times for NFV applications, providing a more efficient solution," said Francis Chow, vice president and general manager of the Communications Business Unit at Altera.
FPGAs act as accelerators by offloading compute workloads, using less power than general-purpose graphics processing units and central processor units, which helps data centres, such as Facebook's Pineville data centre in Oregon, run cooler.
"OPNFV is about collaboration from a diverse group of players from across the industry to craft an open platform that we can all use to accelerate NFV." said Heather Kirksey, director, OPNFV. "We are excited to welcome Altera, who is poised to help us implement the goals of open source NFV."
Author
Tom Austin-Morgan
Source: www.newelectronics.co.uk