The manufacturer QNAP has launched a really interesting new family of equipment for network virtualization, the model QNAP QuCPE-3034 It is one of the most powerful equipment that we have within this family, and it is perfect for implementing virtual networks in small and medium-sized companies. With this high-performance solution, we will be able to integrate a QuWAN network of the company to interconnect all the offices with each other, and in this way facilitate communication between them without carrying out complex configurations. In addition, it is integrated into the manufacturer’s AMIZ Cloud platform for its management and monitoring from the cloud. If you want to know what this new team is like, then we will explain all the details.
This new family of equipment is specifically designed for professional environments where we need to design virtualized networks in an advanced way, but where, however, the configuration is not too complicated. We must bear in mind that this model has the QNAP exclusive QNE operating system, so we will have a very easy-to-use graphical user interface to carry out all the configurations.
hardware features
This equipment for network virtualization has really powerful hardware. It has a Intel Atom C3758R processor with eight cores and a speed of 2.4GHzthis team has a total of 16GB of DDR4 RAM (2 modules of 8GB), but it can be expanded up to 128GB capacity (2 modules of 64GB of DDR4 RAM). The processor of this equipment supports Intel QAT, SR-IOV and also Intel DPDK, so we will have at our disposal all the necessary functionalities at the hardware level for network virtualization.
The ports incorporated in this equipment are a total of 12, we have a total of 4 SFP+ ports at 10Gbps speed and a total of 8 2.5G Multigigabit portsTherefore, we will be able to provide great performance with this equipment, both in the Internet WAN and also in the LAN. Another very important aspect is that it has one RJ-45 console port to be able to access the equipment out of band.
The storage of this equipment consists of 2 M.2 NVMe 2280 slots, this is where we will store both the operating system and all the VMs to virtualize networks that we are going to use. Also has two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type A ports for connecting external drives and making external backups.
The QNAP QuCPE-3034 has two 4cm fans To properly cool the internal components of the equipment, the maximum power it needs to work is 60W and it has quite small dimensions of 28.5cm wide, 23.7cm deep and 4.6cm high, perfect for racking it without any problem .
Once we have seen the main characteristics at the hardware level, we are going to explain what operating system and what possibilities this equipment has.
Operating system and possibilities
The operating system of this QNAP QuCPE-3034 is the popular QNEthis operating system oriented to network virtualization It is really complete, but at the same time, it is very easy to use. Thanks to this system, we will have at our disposal Virtualization Station to virtualize operating systems such as pfSense, OPNsense and even Mikrotik RouterOS, to have advanced functionalities at the network level. we can also use Container Station to deploy different Docker containers, such as some network monitoring system, and all this integrated into the main computer.
Something that we really like about the QNE operating system is that they have integrated the QuWAN solution from the manufacturer to use SD-WAN technology and interconnect different locations, and all this easily and quickly. We also have AMIZ Cloud, the manufacturer’s centralized management platform to remotely monitor the computer, this is perfect for viewing the status of all devices, virtual machines and also containers. We also have a software platform that provides virtualized network functions, including software firewalls and routers.
Of course, this model has advanced management of each and every one of the network ports, both the SFP+ ports and the 2.5G Multigigabit ports, and that is that we can use each port completely independently, and for different types of uses. , in order to have the maximum possible versatility.
Unboxing and first impressions
At RedesZone we have had the opportunity to fully test this new equipment to virtualize networks that is so interesting. Taking into account the powerful hardware and the QNE operating system, we will be able to design virtualized networks in a quite advanced way, but in a very simple way since the operating system is very intuitive. If you want to see what this new equipment from the manufacturer QNAP is like, in the following video you can see our unboxing and first impressions of the QuCPE-3034:
Soon in RedesZone we are going to offer you a complete analysis, where you can see the real performance in different scenarios, as well as all the possibilities that we have in its complete operating system.
