At this point in the 5G rollout, it’s safe to say that most providers are satisfied with the capacity of their UPF (User Plane Functionality) software. As the primary data processing platform between the Radio Access Network and the 5G core, 50-100Gbps is sufficient at this time.
Of course, it won’t always be that way, which is why a scalable, pay-as-you-go solution makes sense. And it is why Ethernity announced a pay-as-you-go 200G 5G UPF forwarding offloading solution. It is a solution designed to allow operators to invest in stages as 5G demand grows.
This solution incorporates two ACE-NIC100 FPGA SmartNICs – cascading them within a single server – within a specially developed flexible 400Gbps fabric. The ACE-NIC100 provides 100Gbps of routing and UPF forwarding offload from the server CPU to its onboard FPGA. Then a second ACE-NIC100 can be easily integrated into the same low-cost server when demand grows sufficiently to warrant 200Gbps.
Ethernity Networks Ltd (LON:ENET) is a leading provider of networking and security software solutions on Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), incorporated into SoCs, SmartNICs, and network appliances. Ethernity was founded in 2004 and has its technology deployed in over 600K systems worldwide, connecting over 100M end users.