Freescale Supports OpenDataPlane for Software-Defined Networking Based on QorIQ Processing Platforms
Freescale Semiconductor (NYSE: FSL) today announced support for the OpenDataPlane (ODP) standard, a common programming model for software-defined networks (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV), created to promote broad portability of data plane software across different hardware platforms.
As network operators increasingly look to SDN and NFV to increase the programmability of the world’s networks, common APIs are necessary to make data plane software interoperable across processing architectures. To meet this need, Freescale is announcing support for the ODP APIs for both ARM® and Power Architecture™ versions of its QorIQ multicore processors. The ODP APIs offer a common abstraction interface for hardware-based acceleration functions such as IPSEC and traffic management, which are implemented in Freescale’s QorIQ multicore processors and engineered to support optimal network performance and security.
“As a founding member of the Linaro Networking Group, Freescale applauds the introduction of ODP version 1.0,” said Nikolay Guenov, director of product management for Freescale’s Digital Networking group. “Freescale and its QorIQ platforms are in solid alignment with ODP, which is the optimal open-ecosystem standard for meeting the performance and efficiency requirements our customers demand.”
Linaro and OpenDataPlane Project
Freescale is an active contributor to ODP, which is hosted by the Linaro Networking Group (LNG). Linaro is a not-for-profit organization consolidating and optimizing open source Linux software and tools for its members. The OpenDataPlane project was established within Linaro to produce an open-source, cross-platform set of application programming interfaces (APIs) for the networking data plane. ODP embraces and extends existing proprietary, optimized vendor-specific hardware blocks and software libraries to provide interoperability with minimal overhead. The project is open to contributions from all individuals and companies that share an interest in promoting a standard set of APIs to be used across the full range of network processor architectures available. For more information visit http://www.opendataplane.org.
