EtherBlade.net is a hardware opensource project.

The goal is to design and build fpga-based universal line-rate ethernet over ip encapsulator – the appliance that can create L2 virtual ethernet links over L3 network (EoIP, EoMPLS, VxLAN etc).

Motivation:

The closest existed analogy to EtherBlade is Cisco VxLAN technology (supported on high-grade platforms like Nexus7000 and ASR) for which EtherBlade is aimed to be an affordable fpga-based alternative.

Development:

EtherBlade (version1) – ENCAPSULATOR:

Version1 project’s main focus is on the encapsulator (transmitter) side. Transmitter performs encapsulation of ethernet “vlan-tagged” frames in any transport overlay protocol: EoIP(GRE, UDP) for both IPv4 and IPv6; EoMPLS; metroEthernet (802.1ah). Typical application scenario for EtherBlade version1 is within an internet service provider environments where L3 “jumbo” packets can be supported throughout the transport network so encapsulated ethernet frames can be forwarded without fragmentation.

EtherBlade (version2) – DECAPSULATOR:

Version2 is a parallel to Version1 project with the focus on the decapsulator (receiver) side. Receiver in Version2 will be able to reassemble fragmented frames sent by the transmitter so any type of a network or open internet can be used as a transport. The goal of Version2 project is to build an appliance capable of prividing universal “ethernet anywere” type of service with “telco-grade” quality.

General advantages:

Flexibly programmable “real-time” data processing system.

Low latency, low jitter and high line-rate data processing up to 12.5Gb is deemed to be achievable even in FPGA implementation.

Low power consumption due to small design footprint.

Additional features like encryption can be added with zero impact on the system’s performance.

Low cost of the device. Extremely low cost can be achieved if the system is implemented in form of ASIC.