Practical application of vswitch and vro device networking

Traditional vswitches and vrouters cannot meet users' needs. Intelligence has become a trend in all walks of life. The same is true for networking devices, people constantly use communication between people and devices in new and different ways. Some communication types are already familiar to people, such as IP voice VoIP), digital images, multicast, video on demand, peer-to-peer file sharing, remote video conferencing, and more. However, all these applications share a common feature: the demand for network bandwidth can be described as "greedy.

In the long run, the bandwidth itself is always insufficient. Smart devices behind network infrastructure-vswitches and routers must undertake the difficult task of keeping up with bandwidth requirements in an intelligent manner. Applications such as video and digital X-rays always require a larger and more intelligent "Pipeline", while VoIP applications require low latency and consistent transmission rate. In the middle of the 1990s s, with the decline of traditional switches and routers, people began to compete for switches and routers that develop faster and more intelligent. A group of talented people in Silicon Valley saw this market opportunity and invented networking hardware and compatible software on the basis of a new concept called "multi-layer switching routing. Compared with software-based routers at the time, these new smart switches and routers can provide faster speed and shorter latency while combining the functions of multiple network devices.

Historically, when the demand for network bandwidth increases, network administrators can redesign the network to avoid router bottlenecks. The server often bypasses the router and reinstalls it closer to the user. For example, a group of Stock Exchange workstations may stay away from other devices in the company and put them together with servers that provide real-time data input. This is because the smaller the number of devices that share network resources such as routers, the more bandwidth each device can obtain. Traditionally, the closer the distance between users and data, the faster they get data, because this can avoid router bottlenecks.

In large enterprises, users are divided into smaller network subnets that implement interconnection through routers ). The basis of user division is generally the region, the type of running application, the required data volume and security reasons. For example, accounting departments are often placed in their own groups to protect the company's financial records, rather than the bandwidth they use. VoIP phones are often placed in their own networks so that they can bypass the bottleneck of traditional routers.

When the computer needs to communicate with other computers in the local network where it is not located, in order to send data packets out of its group, they send data packets to the nearest router. Vro provides connections and security boundaries between the company and the Internet, as well as Intranet connections between the company's internal groups ).

Traditional routers are used only when absolutely necessary, such as connecting to remote offices through WAN, connecting to the Internet, and isolating key groups with high bandwidth requirements in companies. Traditional routers were very expensive at the time, but they still do not make significant progress compared to the original design. The components used are similar to a standard PC and use multiple interface cards to run specialized software.

In contrast, a multi-layer Switch Router integrates all these functions on a dedicated application integrated circuit or ASIC. ASIC is cheaper than the CPU of traditional routers and is usually distributed on Network Ports. Today, a typical vswitch and vro may include 50 ASIC in a single device and support hundreds of interfaces. The new ASIC allows smart switches and routers to forward data at extremely high speed on all ports-regardless of the network traffic type. They are often referred to as line rate at the actual interface speed) forwarding traffic. Now, the market for enterprise LAN) provides new switches and routers that can forward traffic on a single interface with a 10 Gigabit bandwidth OC-192 per second.