Many CSPs have adopted VMware vCloud NFV since the initial release of the platform. Numerous workloads have been deployed in production networks that are established over the vCloud NFV platform. As CSPs expand their NFV environments, VMware is observing an increased number of deployed data plane intensive workloads.
Two main categories for telecommunication workloads exist:
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Control plane workloads. These workloads typically carry the signaling traffic between various components. Control plane workloads do not participate in the flow of customer or user traffic and do not generate a high networking load. With the growing user traffic and the increasing number of connections, control plane workloads are expected to generate a high transaction rate. These workloads are currently well served by the vCloud NFV platform and can easily benefit from shared resources.
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Data plane workloads. Depending on the area in the CSP network, data plane workloads are sometimes referred to as user plane or forwarding plane workloads. Data plane workloads carry user or customer traffic. As end-user applications consume more network bandwidth, and as network capacity grows, data plane workloads must support an ever-increasing load.
Data plane workloads will benefit from the information in this white paper. Examples of these workloads include mobile packet core, virtual routers, video optimization, traffic management, DPI engines, and generally any virtual function that processes a high volume of data plane packets.
