1. Release Notes
  2. Introduction to S-Cz9.3.0
  3. Supported Platforms

Supported Platforms

The Oracle® Enterprise Session Border Controller (ESBC) can run on a variety of physical and virtual platforms. You can also run the ESBC in public cloud environments. The following topics list the supported platforms and high level requirements.

Supported Physical Platforms

You can run the Oracle® Enterprise Session Border Controller on the following hardware platforms.

The S-Cz9.3.0 release of the ESBC supports the following platforms:
  • Acme Packet 1100
  • Acme Packet 3900
  • Acme Packet 3950
  • Acme Packet 4600
  • Acme Packet 4900
  • Acme Packet 6350 (Quad 10GbE NIU only)
The following platforms are no longer supported:
  • Acme Packet 6100
  • Acme Packet 6300
  • Acme Packet 6350 (Dual port NIU only)
The S-Cz9.3.0 release of the Enterprise Session Router supports the following platforms:
  • Acme Packet 4600
  • Acme Packet 4900 (S-Cz9.3.0p2 and newer)
  • Oracle Server X9-2
  • Oracle Server X8-2
The following platform is no longer supported:
  • Oracle Server X7-2

Supported Private Virtual Infrastructures and Public Clouds

You can run the ESBC on the following private virtual infrastructures, which include individual hypervisors as well as private clouds based on architectures such as VMware or Openstack.

Note:

The ESBC does not support automatic, dynamic disk resizing.

Note:

Virtual ESBCs do not support media interfaces when media interfaces of different NIC models are attached. Media interfaces are supported only when all media interfaces are of the same model, belong to the same Ethernet Controller, and have the same PCI Vendor ID and Device ID.

Supported Hypervisors for Private Virtual Infrastructures

Oracle supports installation of the ESBC on the following hypervisors:

  • KVM (the following versions or later)
    • Linux kernel version: 3.10.0-1127
    • Library: libvirt 4.5.0
    • API: QEMU 4.5.0
    • Hypervisor: QEMU 1.5.3
  • VMware: vSphere ESXi (Version 7.0)

    As of S-Cz9.3.0p2, the vSBC supports VMware: vSphere ESXi (Version 8.0)

  • Microsoft Hyper-V: Microsoft Server (2012 R2 or later)

Compatibility with OpenStack Private Virtual Infrastructures

Oracle distributes Heat templates for the Newton and Pike versions of OpenStack. Download the source, nnSCZ930_HOT.tar.gz, and follow the OpenStack Heat Template instructions.

The nnSCZ930_HOT.tar.gz file contains two files:

  • nnSCZ930_HOT_pike.tar
  • nnSCZ930_HOT_newton.tar

Use the Newton template when running either the Newton or Ocata versions of OpenStack. Use the Pike template when running Pike or a later version of OpenStack.

Supported Public Cloud Platforms

You can run the ESBC on the following public cloud platforms.

  • Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)

    After deployment, you can change the shape of your machine by, for example, adding disks and interfaces. OCI Cloud Shapes and options validated in this release are listed in the table below.

    Shape OCPUs/VCPUs vNICs Tx/Rx Queues Max Forwarding Cores DoS Protection Memory
    VM.Standard2.4 4/8 4 2 2 Y 60
    VM.Standard2.8 8/16 8 2 2 Y 120
    VM.Standard2.16 16/32 16 2 2 Y 240
    VM.Optimized3.Flex-Small 4/8 4 8 6Foot 1 Y 16
    VM.Optimized3.Flex-Medium 8/16 8 15 14Foot 2 Y 32
    VM.Optimized3.Flex-Large 16/32 16 15 15 Y 64

    Footnote 1 This maximum is 5 when using DoS Protection

    Footnote 2 This maximum is 13 when using DoS Protection

    Networking using image mode [SR-IOV mode - Native] is supported on OCI. PV and Emulated modes are not currently supported.

    Note:

    Although the VM.Optimized3.Flex OCI shape is flexible, allowing you to choose from 1-18 OCPUs and 1-256GB of memory, the vSBC requires a minimum of 4 OCPUs and 16GB of memory per instance on these Flex shapes.
  • Amazon Web Services (EC2)

    This table lists the AWS instance sizes that apply to the ESBC.

    Instance Type vNICs RAM vCPUs Max Forwarding Cores DOS Protection
    c4.xlarge 4 7.5 4
    c4.2xlarge 8 15 4
    c4.4xlarge 16 30 8
    c5.xlarge 4 8 4 1 N
    c5.2xlarge 4 16 8 2 Y
    c5.4xlarge 8 32 16 6 Y
    c5n.xlarge 4 10.5 4 1 N
    c5n.2xlarge 4 21 8 2 Y
    c5n.4xlarge 8 42 16 6 Y

    Driver support detail includes:

    • ENA is supported on C5/C5n family only.

    Note:

    C5 instances use the Nitro hypervisor.
  • Microsoft Azure

    The following table lists the Azure instance sizes that you can use for the ESBC.

    Size (Fs series) vNICs RAM vCPUs DOS Protection
    Standard_F4s 4 8 4 N
    Standard_F8s 8 16 8 Y
    Standard_F16s 8 32 16 Y
    Size vNICs RAM vCPUs DOS Protection
    Standard_F8s_v2 4 16 8 Y
    Standard_F16s_v2 4 32 16 Y

    Size types define architectural differences and cannot be changed after deployment. During deployment you choose a size for the ESBC, based on pre-packaged Azure sizes. After deployment, you can change the detail of these sizes to, for example, add disks or interfaces. Azure presents multiple size options for multiple size types.

    For higher performance and capacity on media interfaces, use the Azure CLI to create a network interface with accelerated networking. You can also use the Azure GUI to enable accelerated networking.

    Note:

    The ESBC does not support Data Disks deployed over any Azure instance sizes.

    Note:

    Azure v2 instances have hyperthreading enabled.
  • Google Cloud Platform

    The following table lists the GCP instance sizes that you can use for the ESBC.

    Table 1-1 GCP Machine Types

    Machine Type vCPUs Memory (GB) vNICs Egress Bandwidth (Gbps) Max Tx/Rx queues per VM Foot 3
    n2-standard-4 4 16 4 10 4
    n2-standard-8 8 32 8 16 8
    n2-standard-16 16 64 8 32 16

    Footnote 3 Using virtIO or a custom driver, the VM is allocated 1 queue for each vCPU with a minimum of 1 queue and maximum of 32 queues. Next, each NIC is assigned a fixed number of queues calculated by dividing the number of queues assigned to the VM by the number of NICs, then rounding down to the closest whole number. For example, each NIC has five queues if a VM has 16 vCPUs and three NICs. It is also possible to assign a custom queue count. To create a VM with specific queue counts for NICs, you use API/Terraform. There is no provision on the GCP console yet.

    Use the n2-standard-4 machine type if you're deploying an ESBC that requires one management interface and only two or three media interfaces. Otherwise, use the n2-standard-8 or n2-standard-16 machine types for an ESBC that requires one management interface and four media interfaces. Also use the n2-standard-4, n2-standard-8, or n2-standard-16 machine types if deploying the ESBC in HA mode.

    Before deploying your ESBC, check the Available regions and zones to confirm that your region and zone support N2 shapes.

    On GCP the ESBC must use the virtio network interface card. The ESBC will not work with the GVNIC

Platform Hyperthreading Support

Some platforms support SMT and enable it by default; others support SMT but don't enable it by default; others support SMT only for certain machine shapes; and others don't support SMT. Check your platform documentation to determine its level of SMT support.

DPDK Reference

The ESBC relies on DPDK for packet processing and related functions. You may reference the Tested Platforms section of the DPDK release notes available at https://doc.dpdk.org. This information can be used in conjunction with this Release Notes document for you to set a baseline of:

  • CPU
  • Host OS and version
  • NIC driver and version
  • NIC firmware version

Note:

Oracle only qualifies a specific subset of platforms. Not all the hardware listed as supported by DPDK is enabled and supported in this software.

The DPDK version used in this release is:

  • 22.11

Requirements for Machines on Private Virtual Infrastructures

In private virtual infrastructures, you choose the compute resources required by your deployment. This includes CPU core, memory, disk size, and network interfaces. Deployment details, such as the use of distributed DoS protection, dictate resource utilization beyond the defaults.

Default vSBC Resources

The default compute for the ESBC image files is as follows:

  • 4 vCPU Cores
  • 8 GB RAM
  • 20 GB hard disk (pre-formatted)
  • 8 interfaces as follows:
    • 1 for management (wancom0 )
    • 2 for HA (wancom1 and 2)
    • 1 spare
    • 4 for media

Small Footprint vSBC

Minimum resources for a small footprint ESBC, typically used for SIP trunking to a PBX for non-transcoded, low-volume traffic, should be configured with the following resources:

  • 2 vCPU Cores
  • 4 GB RAM
  • 20 GB hard disk (pre-formatted)
  • 2 interfaces as follows:
    • 1 for management (wancom0 )
    • 1 for media

The Small Footprint ESBC does not support the following:

  • IMS-AKA Feature
  • Transcoding
  • IP-Sec Tunnels
  • MSRP

Interface Host Mode for Private Virtual Infrastructures

The ESBC VNF supports interface architectures using Hardware Virtualization Mode - Paravirtualized (HVM-PV):

  • ESXi - No manual configuration required.
  • KVM - HVM mode is enabled by default. Specifying PV as the interface type results in HVM plus PV.

Supported Interface Input-Output Modes for Private Virtual Infrastructures

  • Para-virtualized
  • SR-IOV
  • PCI Passthrough
  • Emulated - Emulated is supported for management interfaces only.

Supported Ethernet Controller, Driver, and Traffic Type based on Input-Output Modes

The following table lists supported Ethernet Controllers (chipset families) and their supported driver that Oracle supports for Virtual Machine deployments. Reference the host hardware specifications, where you run your hypervisor, to learn the Ethernet controller in use. The second table provides parallel information for virtual interface support. Refer to the separate platform benchmark report, for example system-as-qualified performance data.

Note:

Virtual ESBCs do not support media interfaces when media interfaces of different NIC models are attached. Media Interfaces are supported only when all media interfaces are of the same model, belong to the same Ethernet Controller, and have the same PCI Vendor ID and Device ID.

For KVM and VMware, accelerated media/signaling using SR-IOV and PCI-pt modes are supported for the following card types.

Ethernet Controller Driver SR-IOV PCI Passthrough
Intel 82599 / X520 / X540 ixgbe M M
Intel i210 / i350 igb M M
Intel X710 / XL710 / XXV710 i40e, i40enFoot 4Foot 5Foot 6, iavfFoot 7 M M
Mellanox Connect X-4 mlx5 M M

Footnote 4 This driver is supported on VMware only.

Footnote 5 ESXi 7.0 deployments utilizing VLANs require the 1.14.1.0 version of this driver (or newer)

Footnote 6 ESXi 8.0 deployments utilizing VLANs require the 2.6.5.0 version of this driver (or newer)

Footnote 7 iavf driver is support in SR-IOV n/w mode

Note:

Although the OCI VM.Optimized3.Flex shapes provide three launch options to select networking modes, always select Option 3, Hardware-assisted (SR-IOV), for the ESBC.

For PV mode (default, all supported hypervisors), the following virtual network interface types are supported. You can use any make or model NIC card on the host as long as the hypervisor presents it to the VM as one of these vNIC types.

Virtual Network Interface Driver W/M
Emulated e1000 W
KVM (PV) virtio W/M
Hyper-V (PV) hv_netvsc W
Hyper-V (PV) failsafe M
VMware (PV) VMXNET3 W/M

Emulated NICs do not provide sufficient bandwidth/QoS, and are suitable for use as management only.

  • W - wancom (management) interface
  • M - media interface

Note:

Accelerated media/signaling using SR-IOV (VF) or PCI-pt (DDA) modes are not currently supported for Hyper-V when running on Private Virtual Infrastructures.

CPU Core Resources for Private Virtual Infrastructures

Virtual ESBCs for this release requires an Intel Core i7 processor or higher, or a fully emulated equivalent including 64-bit SSSE3 and SSE4.2 support.

If the hypervisor uses CPU emulation (for example, qemu), Oracle recommends that you set the deployment to pass the full set of host CPU features to the VM.

PCIe Transcoding Card Requirements

For virtual ESBC (vSBC) deployments, you can install an Artesyn SharpMedia™ PCIe-8120 media processing accelerator with either 4, 8, or 12 DSPs in the server chassis in a full-height, full-length PCI slot to provide high density media transcoding.

Compatibility between the PCIe-8120 card and the ESBC is subject to these constraints:
  • VMWare and KVM are supported
  • PCIe-pass-through mode is supported
  • Each vSBC can support 2 PCIE 8120 cards and the server can support 4 PCIE 8120 cards.
  • Each PCIe-8120 card supports only one vSBC instance
  • Do not configure transcoding cores for software-based transcoding when using a PCIe media card.

Enterprise Session Router Recommendations

Oracle recommends the following resources when operating the SR or ESR, release S-Cz9.3.0 over Oracle servers.

Supported Platforms

The Session Router and Enterprise Session Router support the same Virtual Platforms as the ESBC. Please see the Supported Private Virtual Infrastructures and Public Clouds section for these platform lists.

Recommendations for Oracle Server X8-2

Processor Memory
2x 24-core Intel Platinum 8260 32GB DDR4 SDRAM

Recommendations for Oracle Server X9-2

Processor Memory
2x 32-core Intel Platinum 8358 64GB DDR4 SDRAM