This lesson provides a general overview of Oracle Acme Packet’s hardware platforms, used

to run the various software products. Some concepts that are common to almost all platforms
are introduced as well. Performance-related comparisons made among the platforms are very
general. Actual benchmarks should take into account very specific configurations and testing
conditions.
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The slide shows the various platforms on an evolution timeline. No performance comparison
is made here. This view basically shows the available combinations of software products and
hardware platforms. Note that the 4250 and the 9200 platforms are no longer available but
are still in use and serve as a good historical reference point.

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Notes
The Acme Packet 1100 platform is of a small form factor which (unlike all other platforms that
are 19” rack mountable) is wall or desk mountable. Its Ethernet interfaces are integral and no
replaceable NIU is used.
The “3800” represents two platforms: Acme Packet 3810 and Acme Packet 3820.
The single difference is that the 3810 has one, non field replaceable power supply while the
3820 has two, load-sharing field replaceable power supplies.

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This slide shows the platforms that are used as Session Border Controllers (SBCs).
Performance benchmarking can be done in various aspects such as signaling bandwidth,
number of signaled (established) calls, and number of media sessions. The numbers shown
are for illustrative purposes only because the precise numbers greatly depend on many
parameters that include (but are not limited to) signaling messages size, encryption, header
fields, protocols, voice encoding used, whether transcoding is used, and whether signaling is
over UDP, TCP, or TLS. The early 4250 (not shown here) has established the service
provider market. The 4500, 6300/6100 and 4600 platforms represent a “natural” evolution,
while the 9200, at its introduction time, addressed some tough market requirements such as
high availability, high performance, and transcoding. These aspects, over time, became
supported on the 4500 and the 3800. The 6300/6100 and the 4600 design reflects all these
aspects from its launch day. The 3800 platform, introduced after the 4500, is intended to be
used in the enterprise market and its design addresses both performance and cost-
effectiveness required there. The 1100 platform is a low cost, low performance product
designed for the small enterprise and remote office market. The 3900 platform, introduced at
the end of 2016, is positioned at the higher end of the enterprise market and is comparable to
the older 3810/20.

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Using the shown platforms as Session Routers implies that no media is handled; in other
words, the Session Router only processes signaling messages. When the
3800/4500/4600/6300/6100 platforms are configured and used as session routers, most of
their purpose-built, high-performance hardware subsystems are not used.

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A specific physical network connection is referred to by a corresponding “slot” number and
“port” number. The early Net-Net 4250 was designed with two physical slots that hosted
several variants of network cards. When the 4-port variant was used in both slots, eight ports
were available, four on Slot 0 and four on Slot 1. The NIU used with the 3800/4500 is a single
card, but is still designed as if occupying the two physical slots – now viewed as logical slots -
each having two ports. The newer 6300 design reintroduces two physical slots, while the
6100 which is a lower cost sub-set features only one slot. The 4600 platform, which is newer
than the 6300, features one slot with 6 ports. Ports 0-3 are 1Gbps and ports 5 and 6 are
10gbps.

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• Except for the 10 Gbps NIU, an NIU can be used on either the 3800 or the 4500
platform.
• Except for the Basic NIU, all NIUs must use SFPs for either copper or fiber connection.
• The 10 Gbps NIU has only two physical connections and is intended to be used only
with the 4500 platform.

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A specific configuration can use either ports 0-3 or 4-5. In other words, 10/100/1G Ethernet
cannot be used simultaneously with 10g Ethernet.

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Acme Packet’s High Availability model consists of two platforms (nodes) where one is active
and the other one is standby. Both nodes are identically configured, but only the active one
provides service and is “visible” in terms of IP addresses. The standby node does not provide
service but is not idle either. It continuously receives call-state changes from the active node
and periodically polls it for configuration changes. As a result, when a failover occurs, the
standby node becomes active instantly and no call is dropped. In addition, each node sends
periodic heartbeats to the other one, over a dedicated, redundant LAN connection (shown in
red).
The diagram shows two 3800/4500 platforms but the model equally applies to the other
platforms except the 9200 where the high-availability mechanism is internal and part of the
9200 design.

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When a platform is configured and used as a Session Border Controller, data is normally
viewed as consisting of “Signaling” packets and “Media” packets, each type taking a different
internal path before egressing. Better performance and IP subnetting flexibility are achieved
when separate physical ports are used (theoretically, one can use just one physical port but
then VLANs configuration will be required in most cases). The diagram in the slide reflects
that. Low-level network traffic handling is the same regardless of the packets’ payload; this is
performed by the networking hardware section. When the payload is identified (by inspecting
at the TCP or UDP header), media packets will be handled by the media section that consists
of specially designed hardware and computing elements, and non-media (that is, signaling)
packets will be handled by the host section, which is more similar to a general purpose
computing subsystem.

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The blocks in this diagram are the processing functions applied to the packets on their way
through the Session Border Controller. They are not, nor do they necessarily map to the
various hardware subsystems. The processing functions will be almost identical but differently
implemented when different platforms are compared. For example, the Lookup Table (in the
center) can be implemented in a RAM area and controlled by a software process in one
platform type, while in another platform it can be implemented as a hardware CAM (Content
Addressable Memory) module.

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The two PHY blocks represent four Ethernet connections grouped into pairs, usually referred
to “Slot 0” and “Slot 1.” The IPsec H/W is a pair of chips that support Ipsec. These are found
on some specific NIU models.
The Network Processors are special purpose CPUs that run loadable code that support
packet validation/rejection, identifying packets as signaling, media or other, media handling
and forwarding. Packets that are processed by the X86 Host (the main CPU) go through a
Traffic Manager function that applies queueing and bandwidth management.
Some of the packet processing (for example, validating an incoming IP packet) requires a
very fast lookup into a table that can be dynamically changed by the main CPU. The lookup
table, organized as an array of keys and values (associative array) is implemented using a
content addressable memory (CAM) hardware sub-system (or a fast RAM on the newer
platforms).

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The gray background shows the traditional (AP3800/4500) design

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Similar to the older platform, a 16 GB flash-based file system exists for configuration files and
OS software storage. Additionally, a local storage in the form of a 600 GB hard disk drive is
provided for call detail records (CDRs) storage, log files, and other permanent files.

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From the data sheet:
“The 2x10 Gbps NIU is an ultra-high performance NIU that integrates dual 32-core processors
with options for high-performance, high-capacity encryption for line-rate security even at
maximum system throughput so that end-user or subscriber quality of experience (QoE) is not
compromised. NIU processors additionally integrate QoS monitoring and measurement as
well as intelligence designed to protect the rest of the system in the event of signaling
overloads or “fuzzing” attacks. The 10 Gbps NIU also supports Acme Packet’s Secure Service
Module (SSM) for hardware acceleration of SIP sessions encrypted with TLS, DTLS, or
Internet Key Exchange (IKE) for privacy and confidentiality.”

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The gray background shows the traditional (AP3800/4500) design.

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