Service provider networks needs to be prepared for the unexpected, says Heidi Adams of Nokia
Nokia has unveiled the latest generation of its network processing silicon, the FP5, which the company says will address increasing pressures on network capacity, speed and security.
“One thing we’re really learned over the past 20 months is, as an industry, we just need to be ready for the unexpected,” said Heidi Adams, head of IP/optical product marketing at Nokia. “With our new product, we’re going to be looking to provide service providers with the key tools to help them to ensure their IP networks are in shape to be master of the unexpected.”
The Covid-19 pandemic, she said, has driven a “fundamental shift” to home-based and remote work, school, healthcare and more, resulting in a 3x acceleration in bandwidth demand compared to pre-pandemic times.
“As bandwidth consumption has gone up, so too have threats on the network,” Adams said. In particular, she added, dedicated denial of service (DDoS) attacks have surged year-over-year. “It’s growing faster than video,” she said, going on to say that service providers have to not just combat malicious traffic, but to protect “good traffic” and ultimately, their network and customers. The third piece Nokia is focusing on with the new generation of silicon is environment impact, as service providers increasingly seek to reduce their contributions to global electricity use and the resulting carbon emissions.
Among the features of the new programmable routing silicon:
-Support for 800GE routing interfaces. Nokia said that New FP5-based line cards will support 14.4 Tb/s capability, and a new series of fixed-form factor 7750 Service Router-1 platforms will make its features available in smaller network locations.
-A 75% reduction in power consumption per bit.
-Integrated line rate encryption for L2, L2.5 and L3 network services at speeds up to 1.6 Tbps, which Nokia says is an industry first. It’s “ANYsec” capability supports the delivery of secure IP services, including MPLS and segment routing, “on-demand and at scale without impacting performance or power efficiency,” the company said.
The FP5 is backwards compatible with the previous-generation FP4 and fully integrated with the latest versions of Nokia’s Service Router operating system.
Neil McRae, managing director and chief architect at BT, said in a statement that in particular, BT was “very happy to see the focus on power optimization as we grow our network, with both BT and Nokia committing to significant reduction in carbon footprint. In the past 18 months, our lives have been turned upside down, and our reliance on networks has been dramatically increased and reliability for customers is crucially important. With security being ever more important for our customers, seeing Nokia’s approach to building more security features into the platform is fantastic.”
“Our network needs to continue to evolve to meet the demands from our consumers, communities, and businesses. With Nokia’s latest generation of silicon innovation and their careful attention to ensuring investment protection with the flexibility to adapt to new requirements, we believe Nokia is delivering the right foundation to ensure IP networks can efficiently scale and transform to stay ahead of ever shifting market demands,” said Hiroyuki Oto, SVP and GM of NTT DoCoMo’s core network development department.
In a time of uncertainty that has led to massive spikes in network usage, Adams pointed out, it’s nearly impossible to predict where things will be in even, say, three years. That’s the element of the unexpected that Nokia hopes to help its customers address through silicon that will provide greater speed, capacity, power efficiency and flexibility through programmability.
