Page 162 - ITU-T Focus Group IMT-2020 Deliverables

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Node
Manager

Slicer C-plane C-plane C-plane
Controller
Slicer D-plane D-plane D-plane

VIF VIF VIF

Physical Network Interfaces

Figure 7.3-1 – Underlying infrastructure of FLARE [Ref.7.3-5].

FLARE is an open deeply programmable node architecture that can run multiple isolated virtual network
functions on a physical node simultaneously. As shown in Figure 7.3-1, a FLARE node consists of a hybrid of
many-core network processor and x86 processor. With the technology of virtualization, we sliced both
network resources (CPUs, memory and link bandwidth) in both many-core processors and x86 processors
environment into isolated slivers. For each sliver, control plane runs on x86 processors while data plane runs
on many-core processors. Control plane and data plane communicate via Ethernet-over-PCI interface
[Ref.7.3-5].
All incoming packets will be scanned and classified by Slicer and then diverted to slivers. Although not shown
in the figure, there is a central node called FLARE central that talks to Node Manager to manage the resources
of each FLARE nodes. The control module called Node Manager is in charge of adding/removing slivers from
a FLARE node. Users can also configure and program their slivers via the interface provided by FLARE central
[Ref.7.3-5].

FLARE’s architecture helps to fill in the gap between SDN and NFV, because it allows to implement software
programs of the both types on a same node while keeping individual logics isolated. The many-core
architecture enables this implementation without sacrificing performance. One such example (using
‘Lagopus’ software switch) will be discussed in Section 7.3.5 and 7.3.6.
7.3.4 Use cases of FLARE architecture

Use case 1: Application-Specific Mobile Edge Computing [Ref.7.3-3 and 7.3-4]
Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) has been recognized as one of the key emerging technologies in the evolution
towards 5G cellular wireless networks. In this paper, we present an application-specific MEC architecture
that applies the concept of data plane programmability to Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs)
network.

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