Wind River enhances carrier grade virtualization software for NFV

Wind River has introduced the latest version of its open source, real-time, multi-core-enabled kernel virtualization technology offering, Wind River Open Virtualization. The new version includes performance and live migration enhancements.

Open Virtualization optimizes open source Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) technology to allow the deployment of network services on virtual machines without the performance loss associated with using traditional, IT-like virtualization products. Open Virtualization delivers near-native hardware performance speeds, whereas standard KVM maximum latency is typically several thousand percent higher than native results. Delivering carrier grade virtualization and built from a Yocto Project–based infrastructure, Open Virtualization is a Type 2 hypervisor that leverages the latest open source advancements for greater cross-platform compatibility and interoperability.

The latest version of Open Virtualization includes the following features:
• Improved throughput and latency speeds, including an 18% reduction in maximum interrupt latency since the introduction of the product earlier this year
• Improved virtual switching throughput with integrated Intel® DPDK vSwitch, offering a 450% increase in virtual switching speeds over standard Open vSwitch.
• Enhanced live migration capabilities, including intra-CPU migration to intra-node migration and intra-virtual machine switching.
• oVirt-powered live migration console, including support for guest operating systems migration
• Security enhancements based on SELinux
• Additional hardware support for the latest Intel architectures
• Expanded guest OS support

“As new devices continue to connect to an increasingly strained network, next-generation telecom equipment must scale to support technologies such as cloud and NFV in order to meet rising data traffic demands and address new service deployment challenges,” said Davide Ricci, product line manager for open source platforms at Wind River. “With Wind River Open Virtualization, customers can achieve real-time, carrier grade virtualization to roll out services anywhere on the network and boost network efficiency while significantly lowering operational costs. Operators can have greater flexibility and scalability to quickly introduce new services as needed by taking advantage of a virtualized or cloud environment with the added benefit of consolidation on standardized hardware.”

Open Virtualization is a high value software add-on that works with Wind River Linux. Wind River Linux delivers a commercial-grade Linux platform and easy out-of-the box user experience with a rich set of capabilities based on the latest open source technologies, fully integrated development tools, worldwide support and maintenance, and expert professional services.

Additionally, Wind River continues to further advance open source innovation with new OpenStack efforts around cloud and clustering work, including bringing the OpenStack Grizzly release to the OpenEmbedded and Yocto Project ecosystem. Wind River is a Yocto Project founding member and Gold member of the advisory board, and actively holds key maintainer and technical lead positions.