6WIND Releases Software that Enables Best-In-Class Networking Products Based on Intel® Multicore Platforms

Traffic in networking equipment, telecommunications infrastructure, security appliances and data centers is growing exponentially, driven by high-bandwidth Internet applications. The need for advanced services to be performed on multiple 10Gbps streams generates challenging processing requirements for every data packet. Product development teams must provide ever-increasing levels of packet processing within limited power constraints, while meeting aggressive product cost targets and schedule goals.



At the same time, shrinking product lifecycles dictate that application software must be reused to the maximum extent possible and migrated efficiently to the hardware platform best suited to a specific end product. Using the comprehensive 6WINDGate™ software suite, developers increase the packet processing performance of their networking, telecommunications and security products by up to 10x compared to a standard operating system implementation, while accelerating their time-to-revenue by eliminating risky, time-consuming steps in the product development process.



Already deployed by tier-one networking and telecom OEMs worldwide, 6WINDGate is the gold standard for commercial packet processing software. Providing a comprehensive, pre-integrated suite of networking protocols fully optimized for multicore platforms, 6WINDGate eliminates the need for OEMs to invest their engineering resources into combining discrete protocols from multiple sources and/or designing custom optimizations to exploit the performance features of the processor they have selected. This allows 6WIND’s clients to eliminate up to twelve months of development time, reaping the rewards of being early to market with cost-optimized products that offer compelling performance.



Since 6WINDGate is fully compatible with standard operating system APIs, developers can migrate their existing code and/or commercial software products onto platforms running 6WINDGate without having to redesign, rewrite or recertify the software, lowering the cost of transitioning to a multicore platform. Similarly, applications running under 6WINDGate on one platform can be transferred to 6WINDGate on another supported platform with no modifications required. 6WINDGate provides best-in-class packet processing support for Intel processor-based platforms. When compared to an implementation based on a standard Operating System networking stack, systems using 6WINDGate achieve a 10x performance improvement on a six-core Intel® Xeon® processor E5645 platform.



Clients can use this performance-per-processor increase to achieve a significant system-level increase in performance-per-Watt, enabling the development of energy-efficient products that meet the performance requirements of next-generation networks while operating within aggressive power constraints. “We are pleased to release support for the Intel® Xeon® processor EC5549 and Intel® Xeon® processor E5645, which provide high-performance solutions for a wide range of networking applications in which packet processing functions comprise the majority of the workload”, said Eric Carmès, CEO of 6WIND. “The 6WINDGate software enables OEMs to quickly develop high-performance systems based on Intel processors, eliminating the time6WIND Announces Availability of Intel Platform Support 2-2-2-2 consuming in-house software development that adds risk to product launch schedules. These advantages contribute to sustainable business growth for our clients and are the reason that our software is already deployed by two-thirds of the leading telecom equipment OEMs worldwide.”



“As customers develop packet processing solutions based on Intel Xeon processors, they need software that can maximize performance and accelerate their time-to-market,” said Rose Schooler, general manager at Intel Corporation. “Software support from companies such as 6WIND is part of a broader Intel focus to continuously improve packet processing performance allowing for the consolidation of application, control and data plane on Intel architecture.” 6WINDGate support for the Intel Xeon processor EC5549 and Intel Xeon processor E5645 is available now.