Cloud Network change: New World, network, new pattern

For telecom operators, the days are getting sadder. The rich and colorful multimedia business demand, explosive growth of data flow, increasingly cheap communication charges, is bringing the operator to the risk of pipeline, and cloud computing has become a tool for operators to break through the current dilemma.

Operators have a wealth of IT infrastructure resources, but also has a nationwide network and delivery system, is a strong customer service capabilities and reputation assurance, is a natural cloud service provider. But now, the massive deployment of cloud computing is quietly challenging network performance and IT management beyond imagination. How to solve these challenges has become a new market opportunity for operators and solution providers.

Of course, opportunity only favors those who are prepared. To examine the different requirements of cloud interconnection, cloud interconnection and cloud interconnection under the background of telecom-level cloud-ready network, the traditional single network technology scheme is bound to be subdivided to optimize and integrate different network functions and customer groups. Operators are also aware of this, for example, China Telecom and China Mobile, in this year they are the core of the data center switch from the traditional metropolitan area Network switch collection and mining, separate bidding procurement. Although the volume of procurement is not very large, but it marks the beginning of a new era.

Operators are starting to enter a new era of cloud-ready networks, which will also lead to more industry users entering. In the evolution of this cloud ready network, the market pattern of solution providers has changed, gradually evolving from the original seven-country eight system to the duopoly pattern. One is sitting on the global 60% market, the old overlord Cisco, one by virtue of focus and innovation and rapid growth of the H3C. In this double race of time and endurance that is full of change, where will the future industrial landscape go? Who is the best partner for the telecom-level data center cloud ready Network? Facing the "barbarians" such as Huawei, what should the traditional manufacturers do?

World

Cloud computing is a basket and everything can be loaded into it. It contains a lot of business, many levels, different vendors, different operators in the mind of cloud computing is not necessarily the same thing. While understanding is different, operators are consistent in their efforts to increase investment in cloud computing and data centers and to set up separate institutions to operate in order to lead the coming cloud world.

The year before last, China Telecom invested nearly 1 billion in Chengdu to build a super five-star "Western Information Center", can accommodate more than 3,500 standard racks, storage capacity of not less than 1000PB, export bandwidth up to 1Tbps, is currently in the domestic production of the largest data center. This month, Wang, China Telecom's chairman, said at the general manager's office that it would build a cloud computing data center in Chengdu this year to accommodate more than 5,000 standard racks.

China Mobile announced that it will invest more than 10 billion yuan in the next three years, according to the "Class two" strategy, nationwide large-scale data center construction, not only to meet the needs of their mobile internet business development, but also to provide users with cloud computing services. Currently, China Mobile has announced the construction of a cloud computing data center in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia and Chongqing.

China Unicom has also launched a huge Wayun plan, which plans to build seven business production bases in the country within three years, and to launch a Wayun service for the public simultaneously. One of the key facilities of the major business production centers is the data center based on cloud computing.

In addition to launching the massive data center infrastructure, operators are also starting to adjust their own architecture and business configuration, to change the former as landlord rental room space, a little flexibility can be the basis of the cloud services evolution. However, the quality of network services to a large extent determines the price of IDC room, resource bottlenecks still lie in the network.

As Sun Hui, H3C's carrier solutions minister, said, "Operators do cloud computing and the network must take into account the rapid growth of cloud computing over the next 3-5 years, which will create huge challenges to existing networks." ”

New network

In the early days of cloud computing and data center development, the challenge was primarily in the areas of server, storage, software, and management, and the network did not occupy the dominant position. But with the emergence and rise of the public service, which is represented by the operators, the scale effect is more obvious than that of the enterprise-level cloud computing, which is tens of millions of and billions of users. Although the operator's cloud computing architecture is different inside and outside, but the final positioning is to do cloud computing service providers, must be to achieve large-scale cloud computing costs only low, economic efficiency, service is better.

From the industry generally accepted classification of cloud computing network, whether it is inside the data center cloud Intranet, the data center between the cloud network, or the data center and the user side of the cloud network, all of the efficient non-blocking switching network put forward a high demand.

At present, the more urgent demand is cloud intranet, new application trend requires that the next Generation Data Center network scheme must have high Wan Chaoquan density, 40gbps/100gbps interface, virtualization ability, burst flow absorption, ipv4/ipv6 support, green energy saving and other characteristics. The vertical convergence network of traditional data center can not meet the demand of cloud computing, so it is necessary to construct the data center with the new network architecture with cloud computing characteristics.

The capacity of a single data center is limited, with the development of cloud computing business, the amount of data exchanged between the cloud will soar, which brings great pressure to the existing IP metropolitan area network and IP backbone network, even it is necessary to build a new kind of cloud backbone network, specially carry the exchange flow between the clouds, and provide an independent Internet for high-speed exchange between the clouds At present, some provinces and cities operators have been in the pilot across the city to connect the data center.

Cloud computing requires not only virtualization of servers and storage, but also network equipment. The virtualization network can not only realize the dynamic provisioning and online expansion of network resources, but also simplify the network configuration and management, and greatly improve the reliability and usability of the data center network. Because the distributed applications are dynamically provisioned in different time servers, the Exchange frequency between servers is much higher than the current independent application, so the traffic characteristics in cloud computing environment are more complex and difficult to predict. This requires network products and solutions for these needs to achieve the overall network of changes, standardization, virtualization, automation, process, open, intelligent become necessary requirements.

New pattern

Although they have been gearing up for some time now, operators are still in the preparation period before the large-scale deployment of cloud computing. It is undeniable that, although the three major operators have a relatively strong technical research and development strength, but in the data center of the basic network, there are a lot of room for improvement, because operators for the understanding of network exchange, more focus on the exchange of urban areas.

The more at such a juncture, the more companies need to have a good technical "sense of smell", innovative ability and rich practical experience to provide support. Previously, the market, especially in the area of datacenter core switches, was largely monopolized by Cisco. But with the rise of Juniper Networks, H3C, Dell and other enterprises, Cisco's status has become increasingly challenged.

Especially in the Chinese market, Cisco has lost the position of the first place. According to H3C marketing vice President Wei introduced: 2010 H3C in the domestic enterprise network market share has surpassed Cisco, H3C/HP Global market share of 2010 accounted for 12%, while the first half of 2011 maintained a good momentum of growth in the next few years H3C market share hope to increase to more than 20%.

From the global market pattern, the data Center Cloud network market has undergone a period of accumulation, the pattern of duopoly is becoming more and more obvious. Cisco will still occupy the top spot, while H3C is close to the third. Of course, in the process, there is another business to mention that is to re-enter the enterprise-level market Huawei.

But to the enterprise-level network market, in addition to their own excellent product technology, timing is also very important. In High-value markets including large manufacturing, finance, telecommunications, government, healthcare, and education, users are concerned about the security and reliability of data center cloud network products, which requires that the solution provider's product be validated, which is Huawei's biggest weakness.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)