The portal aims at simplifying access to a broad range of highly scalable NFV platforms where the performance of 6WIND Virtual Accelerator and Turbo Appliances, plus third-party VNFs, can be rapidly evaluated, and where interoperability between VNFs can be successfully validated.

The initiative is also intended to encourage collaboration between VNF vendors, NFV middleware providers such as 6WIND, OpenStack vendors, and platform providers such as Advantech to stimulate further innovation, to speed wider adoption and faster deployment of NFV-related technologies.

The integration of 6WIND Virtual Accelerator and OpenStack software on top of Advantech’s scalable range of compute and networking hardware into NFV platforms provides a remotely accessible framework that allows users to verify if they can reach the performance necessary in various service chaining scenarios on a particular server platform. In addition, operators can rapidly verify if a specific platform gives them the manageability, scalability and carrier grade resiliency they require for NFV deployments.

Available immediately for testing within the NFV portal in Advantech’s Remote Evaluation Lab, 6WIND Virtual Accelerator delivers accelerated virtual switching and networking features which enable high bandwidth to any VNF that supports standard Virtio drivers.

6WIND Virtual Accelerator runs within the hypervisor domain and is provided as a simple software package managed by OpenStack without any modifications to existing software infrastructure. 6WIND’s Turbo Router and Turbo IPsec software appliances are also available for testing in the portal, and can be integrated with 6WIND Virtual Accelerator and third-party VNFs.

Testing is currently underway with third-party VNF vendors on a variety of software appliances providing functions such as load balancing, security and policy enforcement that enable VNF as a Service (VNFaaS) solutions. In addition, 6WIND is now demonstrating the NFV portal test drive environment at its monthly DPDK Meetups, showing users how to run their own applications in the cloud leveraging OpenStack with increased performance from 6WIND Virtual Accelerator.

“In the transition to NFV and virtual networking environments, telecom operators, integrators and application vendors can benefit from Advantech’s Remote Evaluation Service to help solve performance challenges faster and deploy the best solutions to meet fast-evolving needs,” said Eric Carmès, Founder and CEO of 6WIND. “Our NFV portal in Advantech’s lab allows users to test 6WIND’s Turbo Appliances and third party VNFs on top of 6WIND Virtual Accelerator managed by OpenStack for rapid performance evaluation.”

“We’re excited to expand our Remote Evaluation Service program from hardware-only to full NFV platforms” said Paul Stevens, Marketing Director, Advantech Networks & Communications Group.

“We deploy widely used and fully featured OSs in the telecom industry and 6WIND’s Virtual Accelerator adds the most advanced acceleration for VM-to-VM communication on top of Advantech’s range of scalable networking hardware based on x86 architecture. Not only will RES for NFV allow users to evaluate NFV platforms and configurations quickly but it will also foster collaboration with VNF providers to enhance interoperability and speed innovation.”