Seizing theOpportunities:
Improving Performanceand ROI with an Armbased uCPE Platform

Introduction: A Compelling Market
Opportunity
Today’s telecoms market is changing fast. Consumer expectations
are escalating, as new technologies and services become available.
The pace of change is accelerating as well, forcing providers to jump
start innovation and get services to market faster.
To gain the business agility they require in a dynamic environment,
managed service providers and operators are embracing Network
Function Virtualization (NFV). NFV lets operators decouple network
functions from hardware appliances so they can run in software.
This approach enables telecommunications networks to dramaticallyenhance service agility, simplify network operations, and controlcosts.

built physical network appliances, deployed at the mobile core orenterprise campus. In the NFV world, these services will be delivered
with Virtual Customer Premise Equipment (vCPE) or Universal
Customer Premise (uCPE) Equipment (the terms will be usedinterchangeably in this document).
Under this new paradigm, network services will be softwaredefined and delivered at the customer site, or the network edge,
using commodity white box hardware. This approach lets providers
centrally define and provision solutions to uCPE devices.
Telecommunication providers are increasingly sold on the potential
benefits of NFV in general, with surveys forecasting impressive
growth through 2021 in enterprise hardware and software
solutions. Revenue is expected to soar from $7.2 billion in 2017 to$20.2 billion by 20211.

Traditionally, network services such as routing, security, SD-WANand WAN optimization, have been delivered via dedicated, purpose-Software Total

HW Total

$18B
$16B
$14B
$12B
$10B$8B$6B
$4B
$2B
$0

CY17C
Figure 1. NFV Market Sizing

1IHS Markit.

CY18

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CY21

Software is the main driver of this explosive growth, but surveys reflect significant progress in hardware as well. According to IHS, the total
NFVi hardware revenue is expected to grow from $1.18 billion to $3.08 billion between 2017 and 20212.
In the enterprise space, hardware revenue for Virtual Customer Premises Equipment vCPE/uCPE solutions is expected to grow from $27
million in 2017 to $457 million by 20213.
Another new forecast from International Data Corporation (IDC) estimates that the worldwide virtual CPE infrastructure market – hardware
and software – will exceed $3 billion by 20214.

Demarcation

No Demarcation$500,000$400,000$300,000$200,000$100,000

$0

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Y19

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Figure 2. vCPE/uCPE Hardware Revenue

Conservative estimates forecast approximately 415,000 units will ship in 2021. Estimates are encouraging not only for enterprises, but for
consumer and SMB customers as well, where uCPE sales are expected to gain momentum beginning in 2019.
According to IDC, the virtual CPE hardware market is expected to grow from a base of $67.8 million in 2016 to $1.16 billion in 2021 at a
CAGR of 76.4%5.

2

IHS Markit. Figure excludes vCPE and uCPE revenue.

3IHS Markit

4Worldwide vCPE/uCPE Forecast, 2017-2021: NFV at the Network Edge”, IDC, 2017

5Worldwide vCPE/uCPE Forecast, 2017-2021: NFV at the Network Edge”, IDC, 2017

No Demarcation

Demarcation

450,000
400,000
350,000
300,000
250,000
200,000
150,000
100,000
50,000
$0

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CY21Figure 3. vCPE Unit Opportunity

What makes vCPE one of the most compelling use cases for NFV adoption? This component lets operators consolidate key operations andservices like routing, policy management, and security compliance. These functions are traditionally handled by multiple proprietary hardware
devices, making vCPE a compelling opportunity for partners to get aboard the NFV train. Today’s marketplace has expressed its demands formulti-technology, multi-vendor white box solutions for telecoms and MSPs.
Arm offers a variety of advantages to support these white box solutions. It offers multi-core performance platformsthat support hardware
acceleration and flexibility. With an Arm-based communications platform, partners can take advantage of superior price/performance as well as
power/performance capabilities.
"While the short-term business benefit (of vCPE) may be in the form of lower acquisition costs, the long-term business case rests on theadvantages that accrue from simplicity, flexibility, and agility that it bestows on the enterprise or the service provider delivering the network
service,” says Rajesh Ghai, research director, Carrier Network Infrastructure 6.
A key to success provided by uCPE solutions is service agility and the ability to deliver services for a wide range of use cases and form factors.
In order to do this, service providers are looking for solutions beyond the traditional x86-based hardware.

6“Worldwide vCPE/uCPE Forecast, 2017-2021: NFV at the Network Edge”, IDC, 2017

A Comprehensive uCPE Solution

Promising Performance Results

To address this need, Arm and its ecosystem partners haveintroduced the market’s first Arm-based uCPE solution. Thisopen, complete white box offering lets telcos and managed
service providers select the best technology for their operational
environments and business targets.

The new uCPE solution enables operators and managed service
providers to take advantage of the agility and flexibility of NFV, while
delivering impressive performance against leading competitiveofferings.

The uCPE solution that Arm and its ecosystem partners haveintroduced enables service providers to easily deploy multiple
VNFs such as security and routing. Providers can expand theirsolution easily, adding additional VNFs using zero touch provisioning
and automated service deployment. By providing new hardwaresolutions, Arm allows service providers to create a mixed hardware
environment that includes Arm based uCPEs, as well as any other
COTS white box available in the market, using unified management
systems.
The solution was developed through a cooperative effort between
Arm, NXP Semiconductors, and Telco Systems. It gives service
providers out-of-the-box support for SD-WAN, managed routing,and managed security. Providers can also add other VNFs remotely
at any time, for additional services and capabilities.
At the heart of the solution is the NXP LS2088A platform, residingon a NEXCOM NSA 3640 white box appliance. Featuring eight
64-bit Arm Cortex-A72 cores, this communications platform offersa performance, power, and cost point that’s superior to existingarchitectures on the market.
The solution employs NFVTime from Telco Systems, with hardwareagnostic NFVi-OS and uCPE MANO OS software. “NFVTime
enables zero-touch service provisioning for rapid, effective
deployment of new services. It enables VNFs to run on any
COTS hardware, providing high performance, automatic service
deployment and advanced management and security capabilities.
Its Open vSwitch (OVS) enables network automation throughstandard management interfaces and protocols. Built-in Data Plan
Development Kit (DPDK) support and dedicated packet processing
offloading help accelerate performance.
The Arm-based uCPE solution is just the first of a series of solutions
that will be delivered in the near future. Additional platforms areplanned for launch in 2018, based on platforms from Arm partners
such as Marvell.

Preconfigured with
Commercial-Grade VNFs
To help operators accelerate their service delivery, the uCPE solution
ships with fully configured, commercial-grade VNFs. The 6Wind
Turbo Router and Turbo IPSec is a high performance, ready-to-use
software network appliance. With 12 million packets per second percore of IP forwarding performance, it provides the performance ofhardware networking equipment with the ease of deployment andflexibility of software.
To help ensure robust security and compliance, the uCPE also
includes a VNF Inspector from Trend Micro Incorporated, a global
leader in cybersecurity solutions.

For example, initial benchmarks compared to Intel Atom and Skylake
processors show the following:PacketSize(Bytes)

Intel Atomc2758(8C/8T) Mbps

Intel Skylake i7(4C/8T) Mbps

NXPLS2088 (8C)
- Mbps

64402

627

700

128592

851

1200

256

652

1242

2100

390

701

1623

2786

512

1791

1990

3499

1024

1872

3380

4999

1280

1929

3975

5619

1518

1938

4957

6191

Running on an operational environment based on NFVTime-OS
NFVI, with DPDK and OVS, the NXP LS2088 achieved 700 Mbps for
64-byte packets, compared to just 402 and 627 Mbps for Intel Atomc2578 and Skylake i7, respectively. For 1518-bye packets, the NXP
delivered 6191 Mbps, compared to 1938 and 4957 Mbps for theIntel processors.

Enabled by a Robust NFVService Environment
A distinct differentiator for the uCPE solution is its open, neutral
full NFV service environment. Designed for today’s competitiveenvironments, it enables zero-touch provisioning for rapid, effective
deployment of new services.
NFVTime is a service-ready suite with out-of-box support for avariety of uCPE capabilities. It features the NFVTime Central
Networking Management and Orchestration (MANO) solution. Thisarchitectural framework for managing and orchestrating virtualized
network functions is highly flexible, and can plug into other MANOsolutions. It includes a uCPE Manager, as well as EdgeGenie Service
Manager Carrier Ethernet (CE) 2.0. This service management
system (SMS) offers a complete, modular solution for the full cycleof network deployment, from planning to managing, monitoring, andmaintaining ethernet services.
Another key component is NFVTime Access, for configuration ofvCPE devices. Two service delivery options are available. Verge
appliance configuration enables operators to choose the white boxthat best meets their needs, and employ management software

from Telco Systems. Operators can also choose the CloudMetro CE
2.0 metro edge solution, where Telco Systems provides a completesystem, as well as complete management support.

Conclusion: A Bright Future for ArmBased NFV Solutions

The NFVTime OS features a small system footprint and highperformance. Optimized for superior performance, it is a perfectsolution for operators seeking to rapidly deploy end-to-end, carrierclass services in the business or metro environment. NFVTime
OS provides support for RTKernel, as well as OpenStack solutions
including Cinder, Glance, and Nova Neutron. It also supports OVS,proprietary lifecycle management, and call home applications.

It’s clear that today’s fast-moving marketplace presents a substantial
market opportunity for partners targeting operators who are
migrating to NFV. To enable partners to make the most of thisopportunity, Arm and Telco Systems are actively engaging with
ODMs for development of new platforms at competitive prices.

Backed by a Diverse Alliance
Arm is an active participant in a growing ecosystem of allianceand partners. The uCPE solution is backed by NFVTime Allianceand certified vendors. This rich ecosystem for SDN-NFV services
includes partners and certified hardware and VNFs vendors.
Key VNFs include routing, firewall, security, VPN encryption, WAN
optimization, SD-WAN, unified communications, anti-spyware,content filtering and IDS/IPS from leading VNF vendors such as
SilverPeak, Fortinet, Check Point, Netrounds, Certes, Juniper, Cisco,
Palo Alto, NEC/Netcracker, 6 Wind, Trend Micro, and Riverbed.
Arm is also taking the initiative to expand the ecosystem of NFVvendors who are running their VNFs on Arm-based platforms.

The uCPE solution is just the first offering to enable partners to meetthe demand for innovative NFV solutions. Its initial benchmarking
provides a compelling value proposition for operators—at very
competitive prices.
Arm is committed to continuing to engage and lead developmentof compelling solutions for our partner ecosystem and their end
customers. For example, our AIDC portal provides a one-stop
resource that helps developers quickly find the all resources theyneed to realize their vision. This central showcase provides accessto the building blocks, solution providers, and domain experts tohelp ecosystem partners move their initiatives forward. Arm is also
proactively building its community through participation in eventsand other activities.
To learn more about the AIDC and other Arm initiatives, visit thecommunity portal.
Visit Telco System to learn more about the Telco Systems NFVTimesolution.

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