The Importance of Workload Acceleration

A CSP’s main business is offering network services. CSPs have two distinct drives in virtualizing their data plane workloads.

• Keeping the level of performance in the virtual domain the same as in the physical domain. Data plane workloads move network data from one place to another. Therefore, most of the processing power of applications is dedicated to some networking logic such as traffic forwarding, switching, encapsulating, decapsulating, and so on. Because data plane workloads actively participate in the services that CSPs offer, consumers immediately experience any inefficiencies or disruptions. As the CSPs migrate their physical network functions to the virtual domain, they are looking to maintain the same performance they achieved when the function was implemented in purpose-build hardware.

• Accelerating workloads. Workload acceleration plays a significant role in the business case behind data plane networking in several aspects.

  • Reducing resource consumption. When data plane VNFs and virtualization layer perform efficiently, CSPs need a smaller number of servers, less power and cooling in the data center, and fewer personnel to operate the environment.

  • Providing scale and predictability. Having knowledge about the amount of resources that are required to support a certain workload allows the CSP to build business models around the cost of deploying services. This predictability also helps the CSPs to gain a clear understanding about the costs that are involved in the service success. This is an important aspect of operating a virtual network service. Scale and predictability are therefore essential elements to any workload acceleration discussion.