Bivio 7000 Series
10 Gigabit Programmable Network Appliance Platforms
The Bivio 7000 Series of Network Appliance Platforms is a family of compact, extremely high-performance, and fully programmable network appliances that combine a unique packet processing hardware architecture with a software platform that includes a standard Linux-based execution environment and a comprehensive set of networking features. Designed specifically to provide wire speed deep packet processing, the Bivio 7000 Series architecture fuses Network Processing components with Application Processing CPUs to deliver uncompromising performance and unmatched flexibility. The platform family includes two main product groups that provide performance optimized features to deliver true line rate packet processing from 3 Gbps through 10 Gbps throughput.
The Bivio 7000 Series platforms are fully programmable systems that allow any Linux-based networking application to run on the appliance with little or no porting effort. By basing the platforms on a standard, pre-ported Linux distribution with full API compatibility, software developers can quickly and easily run applications within hours of unpacking the device. A rich set of software infrastructure components further allow developers to quickly realize advanced capabilities of the platform including robust traffic management, load distribution across the multiple Application Processor CPUs, high availability and system management integration.
Benefits
True Wire-Speed, 10 Gbps Performance: A state-of-the-art high-performance architecture ensures that all deep packet handling services on all interfaces are processed and forwarded at line rate for all packet sizes.
Standard Linux Environment: The network appliance platform is shipped with a pre-ported, standard Linux distribution with full Linux API compatibility to ensure rapid development.
Advanced Traffic Management: Programmable features include hierarchical traffic and user class prioritization and bandwidth shaping on a per flow, per customer and per traffic type basis.
High Availability: Bivio 7000 Series platforms support redundant system configurations to deliver non-stop mission-critical services.
Network Connectivity with Hardware Bypass: A selection of industry-standard network interfaces provides configurable fail-open support for copper or fiber cabling.
Scalable Application Processing (Optional): Bivio 7500 platforms deliver unprecedented application processing power in a 2U appliance with additional performance capability through unique stacking technology.
Bivio 7000 Series Models
The Bivio 7000 Series platform family includes two main product groups, the Bivio 7100 and Bivio 7500. All platforms employ a common system architecture that is optimized by model for a range of performance tiers. The major hardware features include a multi-threaded network processor, multiple dual-core application processors, high-capacity Network Interface Modules (NIMs), and a high-performance communication fabric that accommodates full wire-speed data rates between processors.
The table below provides a feature comparison of the Bivio 7000 Series Network Appliance Platforms.
| Platform Features | Bivio 7120 | Bivio 7130 | Bivio 7510 | Bivio 7560 |
| System Performance | 3 Gbps | 5 Gbps | 5 Gbps | 10 Gbps |
| Scalable Processing Capability | No | No | Yes | Yes |
| Network Interface Modules (Any 2 per system) | 12x GE Copper 6x GE Fiber |
12x GE Copper 6x GE Fiber |
12x GE Copper 6x GE Fiber 2x 10GE Fiber 4x 10GE Fiber |
12x GE Copper 6x GE Fiber 2x 10GE Fiber 4x 10GE Fiber |
| Storage Technology | Hot Swap, SATA | Hot Swap, SATA | Hot Swap, SAS | Hot Swap, SAS |
| Redundant Power Supplies | Yes, AC | Yes, AC | Yes, AC, DC | Yes, AC, DC |
High Performance Security & Content Offload Modules
With the trend towards multi-function appliances and inline unified security solutions, many applications can dramatically improve their performance by offloading specific tasks to dedicated acceleration hardware. These specialized chips provide a more efficient way for processing repetitive tasks than scaling the general processing power in the network appliance.
Bivio Accelerator Modules provide high-performance offloading of compute-intensive and repetitive tasks from the Application CPUs including:
- IPsec
- SSL
- XML
- Regular Expressions (RegEx)
- Compression / Decompression
- Character Conversion
Accelerator modules can be employed as a single-function solution, such as for cryptographic tasks, or as multi-function offload cards that are capable of handling security, content matching / filtering, compression and other tasks. The Bivio platform provides one-to-one support for accelerator cards and Application Processor cores. However, an application developer may choose to only assign acceleration offload tasks to specific processors in the system, thus only configuring those CPU subsystems with the appropriate module.
Network Interface Modules
Network Interface Modules (NIMs) simplify the connection of the Bivio 7000 Series Network Appliance Platforms to a variety of industry standard network interfaces. The platform includes two NIM slots that may be populated with any combination of the available NIM boards. This allows equipment integrators to select the appropriate type and number of interfaces required for each installation without impacting the appliance system architecture.
Many network topologies require failsafe protection from devices that are installed as "in-line" elements on the network. This requirement guarantees that an equipment failure will not cause a network outage or loss of connectivity. Bivio 7000 Series NIMs are designed with software-programmable bypass circuits so that in the event of a power failure or other system fault, the bypass ports will fail "open", allowing network traffic to pass uninterrupted through the NIM. The failopen occurs between paired ports on the same NIM. This feature allows the network appliance to be placed directly in-line in the network topology without adding additional switches or routers and is especially useful in a transparent mode deployment.
Bivio 7000 Series NIMs include:
- 2-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GBASE-SR/LR) with programmable hardware bypass
- 4-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GBASE-SR/LR) with programmable hardware bypass
- 6-port Gigabit Ethernet (1000BASE-SX/LX) with programmable hardware bypass
- 8-port Gigabit Ethernet (10/100/1000BASE-T) with programmable hardware bypass
- 12-port Gigabit Ethernet (10/100/1000BASE-T) with programmable hardware bypass
- 8-port OC-3/12 Packet-over-SONET (POS) with programmable hardware bypass
- 2-port OC-48 Packet-over-SONET (POS) with programmable hardware bypass
