Communications service providers (CSPs) must balance energy efficiency, network performance, and service level agreements (SLAs) in their 5G core networks. Power optimization is critical to reducing operational costs while maintaining high availability and performance. VMware Telco Cloud Platform (TCP) powered by VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) and C-State capabilities associated with Intel processors provide CSPs with advanced power management features to meet these demands efficiently.
Enhanced Power Management: What It Means for CSPs
Challenges
Today’s Telecom providers face significant challenges in optimizing power efficiency and managing operational costs due to legacy infrastructure limitations and inefficient workload management. Traditional systems lack support for dynamic workload scheduling, preventing effective energy savings. Performance-sensitive workloads often run without efficient power management, resulting in higher power consumption, increased thermal output, and escalating cooling costs. These inefficiencies impact Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), cloud-native deployments, and latency-sensitive applications like 5G Core and Multi-access Edge Computing (MEC). As telcos push toward greener operations and face stricter environmental regulations, these infrastructure limitations create roadblocks to sustainability goals.
Benefits of C-States in 5G Core Networks
Intel has a suite of power management technologies available on their CPUs, one such technology being C-states, also known as sleep states. The C-state technology on Intel processors enables processors to enter low-power micro sleeps during idle periods. The near-instant exit time from shallow C-states ensures performance is not impacted, while deeper sleep states provide even greater power savings.
- Energy Efficiency: CPUs automatically transition into lower-power states when idle, cutting power consumption.
- Optimized Performance: Ensures that latency-sensitive workloads can dynamically manage power without affecting SLAs.
- Cost Savings: Reduced power consumption directly translates into lower operational expenses.
- Flexible Power Management: Allows CSPs to balance energy savings and workload demands based on business needs.
VMware and Intel: Partnering on Power Optimization
The ongoing collaboration between VMware and Intel brings together the strengths of both platforms to optimize 5G core networks. Intel’s advanced C-state capabilities, combined with VMware’s dynamic workload management, provide a comprehensive solution for more energy-efficient network operations.
VMware’s Telco Cloud Platform offers a robust framework for managing 5G core network workloads, providing flexibility in how C-states are leveraged.
ESXi power management policies help dynamically adjust CPU states for non-pinned workloads by dynamically managing vCPUs through ESXi power policies. For CPU pinned workloads, TCP supports passing through CPU C-states directly to the guest OS, enabling workloads to control the CPU cores’ power states effectively.
While standard ESXi power management is suitable for many workloads, certain latency-sensitive workloads (e.g., vEPC, UPF) require dedicated CPU pinning to ensure predictable performance. TCP introduces new C-State capabilities designed to optimize power management for demanding workloads. VMware TCP leverages Intel’s C-State capabilities to optimize power management at both the infrastructure and workload levels. By leveraging C-State passthrough, CSPs can ensure that performance-intensive applications benefit from power savings without disrupting service continuity.
- C-State Passthrough allows workloads to directly manage processor power states.
- Negligible latency impact ensures critical workloads enter low-power states without compromising responsiveness.
- Optimized workload placement ensures efficient resource utilization while meeting performance guarantees. CSPs can fine-tune power settings to ensure that network availability and performance SLAs are met while optimizing energy consumption.
- Meet performance and efficiency KPIs: ESXi’s power management settings can be fine-tuned to align with specific telco requirements, ensuring optimal energy savings without impacting network SLAs.
- Flexible Configurations: CSPs can tailor power management settings to meet SLA requirements.
Case Study of Power Savings with Intel
The performance demands of 5G networks require a sophisticated combination of hardware and software optimization. By leveraging Intel 6th Gen Xeon ® processors and VMware Telco Cloud Platform, CSPs can build high-performance core networks capable of supporting latency-sensitive and high-throughput 5G applications.
Integrated Hardware-Software Synergy
- Processor Innovations: Intel Xeon processors deliver gen on gen performance improvement, enabling CSPs to handle higher data volumes and more complex 5G workloads.
- Workload Consolidation optimizes power usage without compromising performance.
This powerful combination ensures that CSPs can deliver superior performance for a wide range of use cases, from enhanced mobile broadband (eMBB) to ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC).
Conclusion
By integrating Intel’s C-State technology with VMware Telco Cloud Platform, CSPs gain a powerful solution for achieving significant energy efficiency in their 5G core networks.
- Automated Power Management: Dynamically optimize workload placement to maximize power efficiency.
- Flexible Workload Support: Configure power policies based on specific application requirements.
- Sustainable Cost Savings: Lower operational costs.
