SDN promotes vro Technology Revolution

SDN promotes vro Technology Revolution

Over the past 30 years, IP networks centered on routers and switches have always followed Moore's Law to build a modern information civilization with other IT devices. As the core device at the WAN and LAN egress, routers have always played a key role and have undergone continuous development and numerous upgrades.

Today, the router interfaces have changed from a wide variety of narrow-band interfaces, such as X.25, E1, ATM, POS, and SDH to broadband pure Ethernet interfaces, with a small number of high-speed and high-performance wavelength division interfaces, the operating protocols are gradually unified into a Distributed IP/MPLS system. The larger bandwidth, lower latency, smaller volume, and better cost make the routers, their "brother" switches, and PTN the foundation of almost all networks.

Router evolution follows the "three major laws"

However, changes and movements are eternal, and development is the final principle. Currently, driven by hundreds of megabytes of broadband access, 4 K online videos, 4G/4.5G/5G, Internet of everything, user experience first, SDN/NFV trends, routers are also facing continuous evolution and transformation.

First, the wide-area IPWAN network established by the router is a network with a wide range of applications. Generally, creating a new network is costly. Therefore, a large part of the demand is to expand the network capacity, A certain degree of compatibility is required technically. Therefore, the basic trajectory of router development and the focus of competition are still the evolution of a reasonable speed. On the basis of inheriting historical functions, we must continuously improve the capacity and capability. Taking the core router as an example, the mainstream commercially available devices are 16 to 20 slots per system, with 400 GB per board, forming a to 8 TB rack system. The subsequent development and competition points are to launch 1 TB, 2 TB, and 4 TB boards at the right time. It is best to be compatible with each other. The capacity is increased, and the power consumption and price are not increased, continue to satisfy Moore's Law. This is simple to say, but in fact the industrial supply chain has been damaged and needs to rely on its own vertical industry integration capabilities to launch products with proper capacity and cost at the right time, it is a great test of a company's comprehensive strength, including its new technology reserves and icdesign capabilities.

Second, a smaller volume. Traditional Mid-and high-end routers are all bulky "Iron bumps ". With the increase in property costs year by year, vrouters with smaller space sizes and large bandwidth are welcome. For the site routers of some base stations, the customer even hopes to directly hold the pole. Under this trend, it is very important to study the miniaturization or outdoor router. If we can do well, our products will be very popular, and we can also form many differentiated competitive advantages, especially in the market territory blocked by traditional manufacturers, the routing products with the above characteristics can be used to attack the city. In terms of the development trend of routers, "miniaturization", as an important branch, should be paid attention.

The last point is to focus on the customer experience. Similar to the design of the Home Gateway Router of Xiaomi, it is worthy of praise. In terms of hardware composition, Xiaomi routers use common components. However, in terms of software, it creates an APP-based application chain, which is not only easy to use, but also creates new values, in addition, it can drive more sales of Xiaomi smart home. Although ZTE focuses on high-end routers, it can also use similar ideas to transplant elements of the modern Internet to the router system to create a convenient ecological environment, enhance the customer's experience on ZTE routers.

SDN makes vrouters no longer "low"

The above three points are still in the scope of evolution. With the development of SDN/NFV, vro-centric solutions are gradually being transformed.

The fundamental point of change is the introduction of SDN (Software Defined network. The IP network can be widely deployed around the world. It relies on a distributed protocol system. The routers on one or more nodes crash and the IP network can continue to run. However, it is this distributed system that makes it difficult to implement many special global policies that are easy to implement. The "IQ" of IP networks is actually very low. What's more troublesome is that there is a fault between the application layer software and the router software, and it is difficult to fully implement application policies. The introduction of SDN is trying to solve these problems.

Of course, in the WAN Field Composed of routers, the SDN introduction strategy is also relatively conservative, and its conservative performance is to try not to touch the forwarding plane of the router, in addition, the control plane should be compatible as much as possible. In a hybrid system operation mode, the control plane running distributed on the vro is gradually transferred to the centralized operation on the controller, and the hierarchical controller is used, and a reasonable Northbound Interface to realize the demand for comprehensive software automation. The Controller and the device use the original interface, such as NETCONF or even CLI, or the expansion of the original protocol such as BGP-LS and PCEP, the original concept of PW on the router, L3VPN, mpls te tunnel, etc. are still retained, but the running mode has changed. The problem of "low intelligence" has been greatly improved through SDN.

NFV promotes "generalization" of network functions"

The introduction of SDN is only the starting point of change, while the introduction of NFV (network function virtualization) makes this change variable and has a variety of options. NFV is to make all kinds of functions on network devices "universal ". Originally, some network service functions, such as NAT, firewall, DPI, and Server Load balancer, were implemented by dedicated devices or boards, works with the router forwarding device to implement smart or L7 Application Layer functions. Now, the introduction of NFV has led to dramatic and chaotic changes in the networking mode. On the one hand, all functions of the service layer, including the IP/MPLS Forwarding function, can be run in virtualized mode and run on the server in software mode, this completely disappears the router device. On the other hand, all these service layer functions include the IP/MPLS Forwarding function, you can use virtualization or non-virtualization methods to accelerate and optimize all the operations on the new vro. This gives the new vro unprecedented comprehensive intelligence and adapt to richer application scenarios.

This game depends on the depth of thinking and practice, and may eventually achieve a balance based on "on-demand distribution". The data center server will run comprehensive functions, and the enterprise outlet will run the new router all-in-one machine, the software between the two can be shared, while the distribution of deployment strictly respects the customer experience and helps the customer solve their own problems. After all, ideas that truly create value for customers will be respected.

This NFV-based Router system will also play an important role in the future network system of DC, which can help the network egress of VDC to implement the functions required by the Internet or interconnection.

The Development and Application of NFV on routers will lead to the emergence of integrated hardware for General Services and forwarding on routers. It is believed that, after a period of development and improvement, NFV not only makes SFC service chains and other functions easier to implement, it may also make the SDN unwilling or unafraid to gradually change the forwarding plane, which leads to the second revolution of ipwan sdn. However, it is still difficult to determine when this time point will arrive, but the key point is that we need to actively carry out thoughts and practices on SDN/NFV for applications that can create value for our customers.