Welcome to the modern service provider's dilemma: how to master the unexpected!

December 7, 2021

5 Min Read
Master the Unexpected With Nokia IP Innovation

The global pandemic initiated a period of enormous challenge and change for Service Provider IP networks. In 2017, Nokia Bell Labs forecast that IP traffic would more than double in five years. The reality, based on our analytics tools, is that network traffic has grown 60 percent in the past 12 months. Seven times the predicted pace!

The fact is, when the pandemic struck, we began to rely on IP networks to some degree or other for how we live, work and play. Online applications and services such as remote learning, e-medicine, video conferencing, online grocery shopping and video streaming caused this deluge in network traffic. But they brought an additional challenge of new traffic and usage patterns. Service Providers were forced to adapt since any tolerance for low or variable service quality all but disappeared.

It’s hard enough to provide mission critical network performance and integrity under these conditions. It’s doubly so, as the motivation to disrupt or breach networks for political or financial gain reaches new heights. And it’s Herculean to manage all these challenges and change in a way that minimizes impact on the health and sustainability of our planet.

Welcome to the modern Service Provider’s dilemma: how to master the unexpected!

That makes the launch of Nokia’s next generation network processor, FP5, timely. We’ve honed an expertise in building the world's most critical IP networks. Now, we aim to help our customers master the unexpected through our “no compromise” design philosophy.

Network capacity

Service providers are seeking the ability to scale capacity, but they need to be able to do so while providing ’determinism’ – also known as bullet proof performance guarantees. Their networks need to continue to operate and deliver no matter what.

Think about this in terms of automobiles. Dragsters are very fast. But they go in a straight line only; they’re not designed to handle bends. In networking, what we need is to go very fast, with absolute control, no matter the road conditions. Like a rally car. So FP5 has features like Nokia smart memory, a fully buffered chip architecture and linerate memories for both buffering and tables. In line with our ‘no compromise’ offering, these capabilities allow us to exercise control, go really fast and handle the curves along the way. At the same time, we know that not all customers need as much speed, so FP5 has a range of options that allow every customer to select the right configuration – and to grow the network to suit the business.

Better power efficiency

More and more, service providers are focused on corporate sustainability objectives. That makes increasing power efficiency important for IP networks, for our customers and for the world. FP5 is extremely efficient – we have reduced power consumption by 75 percent over our previous generation FP4-based platforms. Another way of looking at this is that customers can increase system capacity by up to 300 percent while maintaining the same power envelope with no compromises on linerate memory or deterministic performance.

Network security

FP5 provides some new and unique capabilities in the area of network security, building on the embedded DDoS security capabilities we introduced with FP4 chipset. FP5 takes things to another level providing not only protection from unwanted traffic on the network, but also a new layer of protection for the ‘good’ traffic transiting the network. Nokia has developed a new flow-based encryption technology we call ANYsec, that provides low-latency native encryption for any transport including IP, MPLS, segment routing and more. Fast, flexible security that’s fully integrated, and its stays within the power consumption commitments we have made.

Nokia IP innovation

Nokia has an excellent track record on quality and stability with its FP silicon. One that spans two decades of continuous evolution and investment protection for low total cost of ownership.

With one chipset we can cover the edge, core and peering applications. The versatility and programmability of our silicon allows customers to easily add new capabilities as requirements evolve. For existing FP customers, it is vital that the new silicon is backward compatible and designed to allow growth and progression without having to rip and replace existing equipment. They also get faster speeds and lower power consumption – which means lower cost. FP4 showed that operators can get flexibility and capability without compromising on speed. And now, FP5 will take that further.

The pandemic is demonstrating that networks are more critical than ever. They don’t just require extremes of performance. They also require extreme security and reliability. Networks are now critical to daily life – almost as essential as food and water.

As a global leader in service provider IP routing, Nokia has shipped over 1.4 million routers to date and is present in the IP networks of over 1,100 communications service providers and 900 webscale, digital industries and public sector companies worldwide.

Click here to find out how to Master the Unexpected with Nokia

— Jeff Jakab, Director, Hardware PLM - IP Networks, Nokia

A 20-year employee of Nokia, Jeff leads the hardware PLM team in the IP business unit with all IP hardware platforms owned by him and his team. Jeff has extensive experience across a number of roles within Nokia ranging from engineering, support, marketing and PLM. Jeff has a focus on strategic responsibilities in the product portfolio as well as ownership of hardware technical marketing. He hold a B.Sc in electrical engineering from the University of Calgary, Canada and an MBA from the University of Ottawa, Canada. He presently works in the heart of Silicon Valley out of the Nokia office in Mountain View, California.

This content is sponsored by Nokia.

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