Brocade completed performance benchmark testing for a virtual EPC (vEPC) implementation within the Telefonica NFV Reference Lab framework.
Specifically, he Brocade vEPC, running on Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) Intel-based x86 servers in Telefonica’s standardized reference test environment, was benchmarked with a broad mix of mobile traffic loads to measure both user plane and control plane performance. Telefonica’s standardized NFV Reference Lab enables the deployment of complex network scenarios using Telefonica’s OpenMANO stack. Brocade said its vEPC achieved user data processing rates in excess of 8.5 Mpps while serving 2 million simultaneous bearers at a rate greater than 7,000 bearer activations per second, the highest values seen by Telefonica for the reference test environment. Through this benchmark testing, the Brocade vEPC also demonstrated linear scalability in handling additional user plane traffic and control plane traffic independently with each other.
“The Brocade VCM solution is architected to take maximum advantage of virtualization to meet performance requirements. The ability to quickly scale the control and user planes independently ensures agile and reliable operations. With these capabilities, VCM can satisfy the diverse needs of service providers looking to transform their infrastructure to a cloud environment,” said Nishi Kant, vice president of mobile networking at Brocade.
“The objective of the Brocade VCM benchmarking was to determine stability and capacity across a wide range of packet sizes while operating in Telefonica’s standard test environment. We are pleased to see that the VCM greatly exceeded the expected performance targets. These results provide the confidence needed to continue with the adoption and deployment of virtualized solutions and to enable the transformation to software-driven networking,” said Javier Gavilán, planning and technology director at Telefonica, Global CTO.
