Cavium TurboDPI II Software to Accelerate Development of Deep Packet Inspection Solutions on Emerson Network Power Centellis ATCA Systems

These applications include network intelligence, monitoring, management and optimization; lawful intercept and multimedia streaming; and ‘bump in the wire’ applications such as policy enforcement, security gateways, and firewalls.

Cavium TurboDPI II is carrier-grade DPI software which can be used inline or out of band to detect hundreds of communications protocols. Using hardware acceleration features built into Cavium’s OCTEON processors, TurboDPI II is also designed as a modular system with nine optional DPI modules, which include support for application recognition, security and performance monitoring.

The Emerson Network Power ATCA-9405 packet processing blade has been designed to maximize the deep packet inspection, security application processing and raw throughput of Cavium’s dual OCTEON II CN6880 processors. In addition to two 40G ATCA data fabric connections that can operate active/active as well as active/standby, the ATCA-9405 provides for direct Ethernet cable terminations of up to 160Gbps via a rear transition module giving a total internal switching throughput of above 344Gbps. To help manage this, the blade’s independent system management processor implements sophisticated Ethernet switch management as well as local management functions. Free of such system management overhead, the OCTEON II processors can be dedicated solely to deep packet inspection.

“The growth in traffic and demand for more security and management brings a new urgency to the deployment of DPI applications in 3G/4G, LTE and other next generation IP-based networks,” said Rob Pettigrew, director of marketing for Emerson Network Power’s Embedded Computing business. “This requires high performance computing platforms from a vendor who understands system integration. Emerson Network Power’s solutions are scalable from a blade-level building block, through small 3U entry level 2-slot platforms, right up to a 14-slot ATCA system. And our Centellis systems offer front-to-rear cooling, AC or DC power options and are equally at home in a network data center or telecom central office.”

“Emerson Network Power has collaborated with Cavium for many years and the combination of our TurboDPI II software and its ATCA-9405 blade and Centellis systems will enable network equipment vendors to get to market faster, more cost-effectively and with lower risk,” said John Bromhead, director, solutions and services, Cavium, Inc. “TurboDPI II more than doubles the number of rich DPI functions that customers can mix and match for their particular applications.”

Emerson Network Power’s recently published white paper, DPI Use Cases, Requirements and Architectures, analyzes use cases, defines a set of common requirements for DPI applications, and outlines architectures and building blocks that can simplify the creation of scalable, reliable DPI appliances.