Kontron’s Symkloud converged infrastructure platform future-proofs data centers with modular design and integrated compute, storage, and switching for wireless, video and IoT/data analytic workloads
Communications service providers know it’s imperative to adopt network functions virtualization and software-defined networks, but it’s a difficult transition given the complexities of current data demand and what’s promised by the Internet of Things and 5G.
To help service providers transition to NFV- and SDN-enabled platforms, Kontron has brought to market a new converged hardware/software cloud computing platform that can simplify network operations while reducing capital and operational expenditures.
“When you look at virtualizing the network,” Kontron’s Sven Freudenfeld told RCR Wireless News, “you’re actually saving considerable time and money if you are able to manage multiple nodes and functions through the same orchestration layer and the same infrastructure.”
Kontron’s Symkloud platform and integration options makes it easier for CSPs to deploy this kind of infrastructure. With a modular design, redundant 10G switching, support for OpenFlow traffic, OpenStack integration, and a mix-and-match approach to processors, a single ‘cluster-in-a-box’ Symkloud set-up can operate a wide variety of applications at the same time.
For example, Kontron is using Symkloud to demonstrate an IoT solution that manages parking meters in an urban environment. Sensors send information to a gateway then on to a data center where analytics processing is employed to optimize efficiencies associated with the parking meters. Storage and compute resources can be dynamically allocated to best fit the situation.
In partnership with Intel-owned Wind River, Kontron is using Symkloud to allow customers to automatically provision virtual machines and virtual cores. Using the same switching infrastructure, control and data planes can be separated and managed to carrier standards.
“From an architecture perspective, we have all the elements we need,” Freudenfeld said. “We have different architectures on the same platform combined with switching and orchestration layers.”
He also stressed the importance of modularity when considering the wide variety of use cases that Symkloud could support. “These use cases are just a fraction of what we can address. With new technology becoming available, you never lose out on the initial investment in the platform because you can gradually upgrade resources. If I want to deploy more CPU modules…I don’t have to change the entire platform. I can just change server modules and the switching stays the same. It keeps operating as well as deployment expenses, down.”
In addition to supporting a range of Intel processors, Symkloud has a new ARM-based modular server solution. ARM technologies are gaining traction across multiple server markets, as service providers work to bring new web applications to end users.
Looking ahead to next-generation 5G mobile networks, NFV, SDN and the integration of CPU workloads, storage, media processing and switching, will be essential for data center operators to keep pace with consumer and enterprise needs.
5G, Freudenfeld said, will “deliver multiple vertical markets through the same network. A platform like this, you can actually have multiple of these modules addressing multiple functionalities.”
Click here to learn more about Symkloud and Kontron’s full lines of embedded computing products designed to speed time-to-market and reduce total cost of ownership.
