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Network Transformation Experience Kits

Information and tools to guide the network transformation journey

Reference Architectures
Intel Technology Enablement
Acceleration
Automation
Security
Resource Management
Training and Demos

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Easing the Path to Network Transformation

Network transformation takes many forms: open platforms, virtualized infrastructure, containers and cloud native practices—and often a mix of any of these. Regardless of choice, the path to transformation typically requires new tools and new skills. The Intel Network Builders program is designed to help ease that journey holistically. Network Transformation Experience Kits provide a library of best-practice architecture and development guidelines addressing industry needs in automation, interfaces standardization, security, resources management and more. These Experience Kits offer developers, technical leads, and other audiences a variety of materials needed to enable adoption of the new technologies and service-enabling capabilities needed for next-generation, open, agile and efficient networks.

Reference Architectures

Network Transformation reference architectures provide guidance to optimized configurations of hardware and software components designed to achieve efficiencies in modern network architectures. The primary focus for reference architecture development is on Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) use cases. In order to keep up with and derive benefits from the latest advances, most reference architectures are based on 2nd Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable platforms and related technologies.

Reference Architecture

Container Bare Metal for 2nd Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable Processor Reference Architecture

Last Updated: Apr 2, 2019

High-level notes on installation, configuration, and use of Enhanced Platform Awareness (EPA), networking, and device plugin features for Kubernetes.

Video

Container Bare Metal Reference Architecture Overview - Part 1 Training Video

Last Updated: Oct 11, 2019

Video 1 in a series of 4, which reviews how container Bare Metal Reference Architecture (BMRA) is evolving to support network transformation and how BMRA provides resources that help to deploy the technology.

Video

Container Bare Metal Reference Architecture Technology - Part 2 Training Video

Last Updated: Oct 11, 2019

Video 2 in a series of 4, which focuses on the core technologies and plug-ins that comprise the Bare Metal Reference Architecture (BMRA) solution.

White Paper

Multi-Cloud Services on Kubernetes* with Cloudify* Orchestration and F5 Networks* Functions

Last Updated: Nov 14, 2019

Solution based on Cloudify policy-driven orchestration for Kubernetes-managed containerized network-functions from F5 Networks using Intel® QuickAssist Technology.

Application Note

NFV Demonstration Framework - Application Guide

Last Updated: Feb 10, 2020

NFV demo framework eliminating test equipment costs.

User Guide

Packet pROcessing eXecution Engine (PROX) - Performance Characterization for NFVI User Guide

Last Updated: Apr 24, 2020

Step by step instructions on how to prepare, onboard, and run tests with the OPNFV open source PROX tool, which automates throughput testing to characterize the performance of a containerized NFVI system.

TECHNICAL BRIEF

QCT Validated Kubernetes Platform with Enhanced Platform Awareness Technical Brief

Last Updated: Jun 19, 2020

QCT collaborated with Intel to deliver a QCT validated Kubernetes platform with Enhanced Platform Awareness (EPA), bringing high interoperability and agility in workload orchestration.

TECHNICAL BRIEF

QCT Validated Red Hat OpenShift Platform with Enhanced Platform Awareness and Optimized Base Frequency Technical Brief

Last Updated: Jun 19, 2020

QCT collaborated with Intel to deliver a QCT validated Red Hat OpenShift Platform applying Enhanced Platform Awareness (EPA) features as well as Intel® SST-BF technology.

Intel Technology Enablement

This section provides comprehensive descriptions, tools and support materials of the service enabling capabilities of key Intel products including 2nd Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors, Intel® QuickAssist Technology, Intel® Optane™ DC Persistent Memory and more.

Application Note

Intel® Ethernet Controller 700 Series - Open vSwitch* Hardware Acceleration Application Note

Last Updated: Oct 14, 2019

How to use the capabilities of the Intel® Ethernet Controller 700 Series based Network Interface Cards (NICs) to boost packet switching performance of the Open vSwitch (OvS) with DPDK, using hardware acceleration.

Application Note

Intel® Ethernet Controller 700 Series GTPv1 - Dynamic Device Personalization Application Note

Last Updated: Apr 2, 2019

How to use GPRS tunneling protocol (GTPv1) profile to enhance performance and optimize core utilization for vEPC and multi-access edge computing (MEC) use cases.

Application Note

Intel® Optane™ DC Persistent Memory - Content Delivery Networks Use Case User Guide

Last Updated: Apr 2, 2019

Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory addresses memory constraint challenges for latency-sensitive use cases. This guide explains how to apply Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory in CDNs.

Application Note

Intel® Optane™ DC Persistent Memory - Telecom Use Case Workloads Application Note

Last Updated: Oct 14, 2019

Overview of Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory for telecom use cases.

Application Note

Intel® Speed Select Technology – Base Frequency (Intel® SST-BF) with Kubernetes* Application Note

Last Updated: Oct 31, 2019

How to utilize the Intel® SST-BF feature in a cluster managed by Kubernetes* (K8s) container orchestration.

Application Note

Intel® Speed Select Technology - Base Frequency Configuration Automation on OpenStack* Compute Host Application Note

Last Updated: Oct 14, 2019

Instructions for configuration and provisioning of Intel® SST-BF on an Open Stack managed node with or without Open vSwitch* (OVS*) reserved cores.

Application Note

Telco/Cloud Enablement for 2nd Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable platform - Intel® QuickAssist Technology Application Note

Last Updated: Apr 2, 2019

Overview of Intel® QuickAssist Technology (Intel® QAT) features, capabilities, and performance benefits when utilized on the 2nd generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable platform.

Application Note

Telco/Cloud Enablement for 2nd Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable platform - Intel® Resource Director Technology Application Note

Last Updated: Apr 2, 2019

Overview of Intel® RDT CAT and CMT features in the 2nd Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors. Showcases the benefits for telecom environment deployments, especially virtualized workloads.

Acceleration

Open platforms provide the scalability and flexibility needed for almost any network usage. In some cases, this includes using standards-based acceleration technologies to deliver the required efficiency or performance. Intel offers a large range of technologies and capabilities to meet the broad range of throughput and reliability of network workloads.

solution Brief

5G User Plane Function (UPF) - Performance with ASTRI Solution Brief

Last Updated: Apr 24, 2020

Solution Brief articulating the performance benefits for 5G with ASTRI 5G Core User Plane Function (UPF), 2nd generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processors, and Intel® Ethernet Controller 800 Series 100G.

Video

AF_XDP – In Kernel Fast Path Overview Training Video

Last Updated: Apr 8, 2020

Video detailing the benefits of AF_XDP, architecture & internals of AF_XDP, socket interface and Cloud Native Motivations for Address Family Express Data Path.

Technology GUIDE

Intel® Ethernet Controller 700 Series - Dynamic Device Personalization Support for CNF with Kubernetes* Technology Guide

Last Updated: Apr 24, 2020

How to orchestrate container workloads on a Kubernetes* cluster to take advantage of the DDP feature in certain Intel® Ethernet Controllers and customize packet processing to improve throughput and performance.

Application Note

Intel® Ethernet Controller 700 Series - Open vSwitch* Hardware Acceleration Application Note

Last Updated: Oct 14, 2019

Description of the Intel® Ethernet Controller 700 Series based NICs capabilities for boosting packet switching performance of the Open vSwitch with DPDK, using hardware acceleration.

Application Note

Intel® Optane™ DC Persistent Memory - Telecom Use Case Workloads Application Note

Last Updated: Oct 14, 2019

Overview of Intel® Optane™ DC persistent memory for telecom use cases.

Application Note

Intel® Speed Select Technology - Base Frequency - Enhancing Performance Application Note

Last Updated: Apr 2, 2019

Overview of a CPU capability called Intel® Speed Select Technology – Base Frequency (Intel® SST-BF), which is available on select SKUs of 2nd generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable processor.

Application Note

Intel® Speed Select Technology - Base Frequency Priority CPU Management for Open vSwitch* (OVS*) Application Note

Last Updated: Oct 14, 2020

How to configure Open vSwitch* (OvS*) with DPDK to ensure “priority” CPUs are used for packet processing activity to maximize throughput.

Application Note

Telco/Cloud Enablement for 2nd Generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable platform - Intel® QuickAssist Technology Application Note

Last Updated: Apr 2, 2019

Overview of Intel® QuickAssist Technology (Intel® QAT) features, capabilities, and performance benefits when utilized on the 2nd generation Intel® Xeon® Scalable platform.

Automation

A critical objective of many network transformation projects is enable automation to offset the time-consuming and costly manpower requirements to manage scalable, distributed networks and to achieve more cloud-like efficiencies. While the separation of functions found in most virtualized, NFV or cloud-native environments could initially multiply the complexity of managing services, they also promise unprecedented ability to streamline and automate management and maintenance functions through the use of telemetry, closed loop processes and increasingly AI techniques.

White Paper

Closed Loop Automation - Telemetry Aware Scheduler for Service Healing and Platform Resilience White Paper

Last Updated: Oct 14, 2019

Overview of a platform resiliency prototype that showcases the integration of key Closed Loop Automation components, leveraging a mix of solutions provided by Intel and the open source community.

Video

Closed Loop Platform Automation - Power Savings Demo

Last Updated: Oct 11, 2019

Overview of closed loop automation demo that runs telemetry data through analytics and uses the output to make informed decisions.

Video

Closed Loop Platform Automation - System QoS Demo

Introduction to Intel® Resource Director Technology, which can be used to quiesce a “noisy neighbour” and restore performance to high priority applications to ensure optimum Quality of Service.

User Guide

Closed Loop Platform Automation – Workload Resiliency User Guide

Last Updated: Apr 2, 2019

Closed loop platform resiliency demo that leverages the integration around orchestration, monitoring software, and platform resource provisioning with the help of automation.

Video

Enhanced Service Assurance - Intel Platform with OPNFV Barometer project Demo

Last Updated: Apr 2, 2019

Demo using open source service assurance tools to identify faults in the network and resolve issues quickly to minimize service downtime.

User Guide

Enhanced Service Assurance - Intel Platform with OPNFV Barometer project User Guide

Last Updated: Apr 2, 2019

How to install the open source OPNFV* Barometer project and trigger the deployment of collectd*, InfluxDB* and Grafana* across a single/multi node setup.

Feature Brief

Intel Platform Service Assurance – Integration with VNF Event Stream Feature Brief

Last Updated: Apr 2, 2019

Overview of the collectd integrated Virtual Network Function (VNF) Event Stream plugin, which offers a common model to gather platform telemetry data.

Feature Brief

Intel Platform Service Assurance – Retrieving Redfish* Platform Telemetry Feature Brief

Last Updated: Apr 2, 2019

Description of how Redfish* exposes an interface to retrieve platform telemetry using collectd.

Feature Brief

Intel Platform Service Assurance – Telemetry ingestion into OpenStack* Feature Brief

Last Updated: Apr 2, 2019

Overview of ingesting Platform Service Assurance telemetry into OpenStack and how it may be utilized for automatic discovery and reaction to events in your network.

Feature Brief

Intel Platform Service Assurance – Telemetry ingestion into Platform for Network Data Analytics Feature Brief

Last Updated: Apr 2, 2019

Description of ingesting Platform Service Assurance telemetry into open source Platform for Network Data Analytics (PNDA) for further utilization of automatic discovery and reaction to events in your network

Feature Brief

Multi-Cloud Services on Kubernetes* with Cloudify* Orchestration and F5 Networks* Functions

Last Updated: Nov 14, 2019

Solution based on Cloudify policy-driven orchestration for Kubernetes-managed containerized network-functions from F5 Networks using Intel® QuickAssist Technology.

Feature Brief

Telemetry Aware Scheduling - Automated Workload Optimization with Kubernetes* (K8s*) Technology Guide

Last Updated: Apr 24, 2020

Methodology for enhancing scheduling capabilities in K8s. Telemetry Aware Scheduling (TAS) enables automated actions and intelligent placement of workloads based on up-to-date platform telemetry.

Security

Security of any networking system is always a top priority. No network transformation journey is possible without considering and planning for the security implications. New technologies allow new hardware and virtualized or containerized security services to provide the latest protections throughout the network infrastructure.

Application Note

Secure the Network Infrastructure - Secure Boot Methodologies Application Note

Last Updated: Apr 2, 2019

Implementation of Intel® Boot Guard and UEFI secure boot for networking platforms is described, including packet processing workloads, bare metal, DPDK, and other virtualized and non-virtualized systems.

Solution Brief

Secure the Network Infrastructure - Secure Cloud Native Network Platforms Solution Brief

Last Updated: Apr 24, 2020

Overview of security requirements and guidance for 5G Infrastructure Security, including Secure Boot/Platform Attestation and technologies such as Secure Boot and Intel® SecL - DC, which are integrated for Kubernetes clusters.

User Guide

Secure the Network Infrastructure - Secure Cloud Native Network Platforms User Guide

Last Updated: Apr 24, 2020

Step by step instructions for delivering an end-to-end security solution for network and edge platforms. Includes installation of Intel® SecL - DC software and deployment of Secure Boot, TPM status and other utilities.

Resource Management

The objective of automated, scalable, highly performant solutions requires efficient allocation and management of the resources across the network. Network resource management is the process of managing and allocating resources for networking processes in an efficient way serving multiple, often dynamic workload needs.

User Guide

Resource Management Daemon (RMD) User Guide

Last Updated: Apr 2, 2019

Describes Resource Management Daemon (RMD) architecture and installation, usage scenario, and provides examples of using RMD for Intel® Resource Director Technology and P-state control using PMU.

Training and Demos

Watch the following training and demo videos to understand the newly developed networking capabilities and how you can apply them to your networking environments.

Video

AF_XDP – In Kernel Fast Path Overview Training Video

Last Updated: Apr 8, 2020

Part of the Container Experience Kit video series. M Jay, DPDK/NFV Platform Application Engineer at Intel, discusses Address Family Express Data Path (AF_XDP), AF_XDP architecture, and sample code for AF_XDP socket interface.

Video

Closed Loop Automation - Telemetry Aware Scheduler for Service Healing and Platform Resilience Demo

Last Updated: Oct 11, 2019

Platform Resiliency prototype using telemetry to enable configuration, reporting, monitoring and workload placement in a K8s environment. Corrective healing triggered by K8s Telemetry Aware Scheduler policy.

Video

Closed Loop Platform Automation - Power Savings Demo

Last Updated: Oct 11, 2019

Patrick Kutch of Intel Corporation, demonstrates closed loop automation by running telemetry data through analytics and using the output to make informed decisions.

Video

Closed Loop Platform Automation - System QoS Demo

Introduction to Intel® Resource Director Technology, which can be used to quiesce a “noisy neighbour” and restore performance to high priority applications to ensure optimum Quality of Service.

Video

Closed Loop Platform Automation – Workload Resiliency Demo

Workload resiliency demo that minimizes service outage time and maximizes service availability. Uses Intel® architecture platform specific metrics and events to monitor the health of the platform and identify issues.

Video

Container Bare Metal Reference Architecture Overview - Part 1 Training Video

Last Updated: Oct 11, 2019

Video 1 in a series of 4, which reviews how container Bare Metal Reference Architecture (BMRA) is evolving to support network transformation and how BMRA provides resources that help to deploy the technology.

Video

Container Bare Metal Reference Architecture Technology - Part 2 Training Video

Last Updated: October 11, 2019

Video 2 in a series of 4, which focuses on the core technologies and plug-ins that comprise the Bare Metal Reference Architecture (BMRA) solution.

Video

Container Bare Metal Reference Architecture Installation - Part 3 Training Video

Last Updated: Oct 11, 2019

Video 3 in a series of 4, which provides a deeper explanation of the Ansible playbook and how to deploy the Container Bare Metal Reference Architecture playbook.

Video

Container Bare Metal Reference Architecture Verification - Part 4 Training Video

Last Updated: Oct 11, 2019

Video 4 in a series of 4, which demonstrates how to verify the Bare Metal Reference Architecture components are running as expected.

Video

Enhanced Service Assurance - Intel Platform with OPNFV Barometer project Demo

Last Updated: Apr 2, 2019

Demo using open source service assurance tools to identify faults in the network and resolve issues quickly to minimize service downtime.

Video

Intel® Ethernet - Dynamic Device Personalization (DDP) - Overview Training Video

Last Updated: Sep 3, 2019

Part of the Network Transformation Experience Kit video series. Introduces Intel® Ethernet with DDP, which provides the ability to reconfigure the packet processing pipeline to support a broader range of traffic types.

Video

Intel® Speed Select Technology – Base Frequency - Overview Training Video

Part of the Network Transformation Experience Kit video series. M Jay, DPDK/NFV Platform Application Engineer at Intel, introduces Intel® SST-BF and its benefits, including which processors support it.

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