Napatech and A5G Networks deliver high-performance distributed 5G User Plane Function with traffic steering

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COPENHAGEN, Denmark and NASHUA NH, USA – January 15, 2025 – Napatech™ (OSLO: NAPA.OL), a leading provider of programmable Smart Network Interface Cards (SmartNICs) and Infrastructure Processing Units (IPUs) used in cloud, enterprise and telecom datacenter networks, and A5G NetworksTM, Inc., a leader in distributed and autonomous 4G/5G core network software, today announced the availability of a high-performance distributed and autonomous 5G User Plane Function (UPF) solution optimized for the Dell PowerEdge XR8000 edge server. Napatech will showcase this solution in their booth #7B67 at MWC 2025 in Barcelona from March 3rd through 6th.

Enterprises and Communications Service Providers (CSPs) are increasingly deploying 5G core infrastructure at the edge of the network in order to save on backhaul costs, to minimize latency for real-time applications and to ensure that data remains on-site for regulatory compliance and/or privacy reasons. This trend is applicable to private 5G networks in industries such as manufacturing, transport, logistics, healthcare, energy and mining, as well as Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) deployments by CSPs.

In order for a distributed 5G core to be cost-effective, it’s important to maximize the number of devices and streams that can be supported in a small-footprint, power-efficient edge server, while also ensuring the availability of server compute resources for edge applications and services like Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) and Machine Learning (ML) workloads.

To address this need, Napatech, A5G Networks and Dell Technologies have collaborated to develop an autonomous and distributed 5G core solution that comprises A5G Networks’ autonomous and converged packet core (ANoNCore) software running on a Dell PowerEdge XR8000 server that is optimized for network edge deployments. The server is configured with Napatech’s 2x 100G NT400D13 SmartNIC, powered by Altera’s AgilexTM 7 FPGA, that uses A5G Networks’ ML-based DPI function to offload compute intensive flows and accelerate the User Plane Function (UPF) within the packet core, maximizing the performance and energy efficiency of the 5G core while freeing up server CPU cores for use by CDNs and other functions including ML workloads.

“Distributed 5G cores are important for networks serving customers across multiple countries or jurisdictions”, said Indranil Sen, President at Ekiva. “As a provider of Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) solutions for both enterprises and Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs), we are pleased to see the emergence of optimized edge infrastructure such as the new integrated platform developed by A5G Networks, Dell Technologies and Napatech.”

The Dell PowerEdge XR8000 server features an innovative, open modular design and is the lowest-TCO compute platform for a modern telecom operator looking to deploy, operate and evolve their services at the edge of the network. The combination of A5G’s software and Napatech’s SmartNIC-based UPF offload enables the XR8000 to deliver a 5G core with end-to-end latency under 4 microseconds, which is ideal for high-bandwidth real-time use cases.

“Our autonomous 4G/5G packet core is fully distributed and elastically scalable, using a cloud-native, microservices-based architecture to meet the growing demand of user plane traffic and processing,” said Kartik Raval, Co-Founder and VP of Technology at A5G Networks. “By leveraging Napatech’s UPF offload in an edge-hosted FWA use case, combined with our ML-based traffic steering function for critical traffic, we’re able to increase the number of users supported in a single XR8000 server by a factor of 12x, while reducing per-user server CAPEX by 82% and also improving the energy efficiency of the edge data center by a factor of 12x.”

“Napatech’s 5G UPF offload sustains full 2x 100G wire speed operation for typical packet sizes on an NT400D13 SmartNIC, processing up to 185 million concurrent flows and achieving a total throughput of up to 297 million packets per second for stateless operation,” said Charlie Ashton, Senior Director of Business Development at Napatech. “By offloading the UPF data plane from the server CPU and requiring only a single core for the UPF control plane, the solution frees up the remaining CPU cores for running value-added services like CDNs.”

“We are delighted to see A5G Networks, Dell Technologies and Napatech introduce their distributed UPF solution that leverages the NT400D13 SmartNIC,” said Jeni Barovian, Head of Market Development at Altera. “The Agilex™ AGF022 F-Tile FPGA delivers high performance and power efficiency for the most demanding applications, enabling industry-leading solutions for telecom infrastructure and private networks.”

The distributed UPF solution developed by A5G, Dell and Napatech is available today. For more information, please see the solution brief at https://infohub.delltechnologies.com/en-us/l/telecom-co-innovation/dell-xr8000-server-based-solution-for-distributed-5g-upf-with-traffic-steering/

About Napatech
Napatech is the leading supplier of SmartNIC and IPU solutions used in cloud, enterprise and telecom datacenters. Through commercial-grade software suites integrated with high-performance hardware, Napatech accelerates network infrastructure, security and storage workloads to deliver best-in-class system-level performance while maximizing the availability of server compute resources for applications and services. Additional information is available at www.napatech.com.

About A5G Networks
A5G Networks Inc. is a leader and innovator in autonomous mobile core software. The company is headquartered in Nashua NH, USA with offices in Pune MH, India. A5G Networks is pioneering secure and scalable 4G, 5G and Wi-Fi software to enable a distributed and autonomous network of networks. For more information, visit www.a5gnet.com.

No Forward-Looking Statements
This press release may contain forward-looking statements which are only predictions and may differ materially from actual future events or results due to a variety of factors, including but not limited to, business conditions, trends in the industry and markets, global economic and geopolitical conditions, macro-economic factors, and other risks and uncertainties set forth in Napatech’s reports. The matter discussed in this release is based on current expectations and maybe subject to change. Napatech will not necessarily update this information. For details, visit us at www.napatech.com.