Mellanox Launches Open Source Software Initiative for Routers, Load Balancers, and Firewalls

Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. (NASDAQ:MLNX), a leading supplier of high-performance, end-to-end interconnect solutions for data center servers and storage systems, today announced a new open source software initiative to enable advanced open networking platforms such as routers, load balancers, and firewalls. A key part of the initiative is the release of the first ever software development kit: OpenNPU SDK, for the company's most advanced network processor unit (NPU), the NPS-400. OpenNPU is made available under either GPL or BSD license to enable developers to explore, research, and innovate with true programmable packet processing at 600 million packets per seconds. The OpenNPU SDK addresses the need for open source software aimed at the increasing number of open networking platforms proliferating the market today.

“The market for networking devices is undergoing a major paradigm shift, moving away from closed proprietary OEM network equipment and migrating towards open platforms that are both flexible and configurable,” said Dror Goldenberg, vice president software architecture, Mellanox Technologies. “We are in full support of this movement as evidenced by our initiative to open source the entire suite of Mellanox software for our NPS family of network processors.”

“Making an open source SDK available for the NPS-400 is a natural evolution of the Mellanox NPU offering,” said Bob Wheeler, principal analyst at The Linley Group. “With its support for GNU-based tools and Linux, the NPS architecture makes programming an NPU easier and more accessible than any prior merchant product.”

OpenNPU is part of a community-wide effort to explore and redefine the boundaries and capabilities of high speed network processors. As such, OpenNPU is open to individual contributors, academic and research institutions as well commercial organizations wishing to participate. The goal of the OpenNPU is to engage with the community to provide an environment for rapid prototyping and innovation. The OpenNPU development environment is ideal for experts in high speed line rate data plane programming, Linux kernel networking stacks, DPDK, deep packet inspection, and other advanced networking applications.

In addition, Mellanox is launching a university partnership program aimed at fostering the development of open source APIs and enabling a multi-vendor ecosystem aimed at dramatically accelerating software-defined networking. As part of this program, Mellanox will provide NPS equipment and technical support to participating universities for the development of advanced technology projects. Terms and scope of each project to be mutually agreed upon by Mellanox and the prospective university. Please contact: University@opennpu.org for full program details.

NPS is a family of high-end network processors capable of very sophisticated packet processing functions and is programmable in C in the Linux environment. The NPS is capable of performing L2-7 packet processing and is well-tuned for router-type functions as well as more sophisticated functions like deep packet processing for intrusion protection/detection systems (IPS/IDS), application recognition, firewalling and cyber-attack prevention, and distributed denial of service (DDOS) mitigation.

OpenNPU is a complete SDK for the NPS-400 packet processor, including open source driver software, APIs, control and data path libraries, and complete toolchain to program the NPS-400 network processor. In addition, the kit also provides reference applications for switching, routing and IPSec processing. The Accelerated Linux Virtual server (LVS) is provided as an example of how the OpenNPU can be used to provide significant hardware acceleration to the Linux kernel networking stack.

Supporting Resources:

• OpenNPU: www.opennpu.org
• https://github.com/mellanox/ALVS
• http://www.mellanox.com/page/products_dyn?product_family=241
• Follow Mellanox on: Twitter, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and YouTube
• Join the Mellanox Community

About Mellanox

Mellanox Technologies (NASDAQ: MLNX) is a leading supplier of end-to-end InfiniBand and Ethernet interconnect solutions and services for servers and storage. Mellanox interconnect solutions increase data center efficiency by providing the highest throughput and lowest latency, delivering data faster to applications and unlocking system performance capability. Mellanox offers a choice of fast interconnect products: adapters, switches, software and silicon that accelerate application runtime and maximize business results for a wide range of markets including high performance computing, enterprise data centers, Web 2.0, cloud, storage and financial services. More information is available at www.mellanox.com.

Mellanox is a registered trademark of Mellanox Technologies, Ltd. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

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