Xinlang Case Study

Sina is the world's largest Chinese portal, with over 0.1 billion registered users. Sina search is an efficient search tool provided by sina. Sina chose Force1 0 E300 as the core switch of the data center to provide uninterrupted high-performance search services.

With the rapid popularization and cost reduction of Gigabit Ethernet, servers have configured Gigabit Ethernet adapters as basic hardware. The server in the xinlang data center is switching from a traditional server with a low performance of Mbps Ethernet card to a high-performance server with a Gigabit Ethernet card, higher-frequency CPU, larger memory capacity, and hard disk space. Therefore, the data center switch must provide a higher-density Gigabit Ethernet port to meet the requirements of a large number of servers.

As one of the main initiators of the next-generation data center Forum NDCF, Force10 network companies and mainstream server vendors, security vendors, and software vendors jointly promote the construction of a new generation of data centers. Force10's E series products are not often suitable for the requirements of the next-generation IDC network. The e-series products are available in three product models: E1200, E600, and E300. The product has the following main features applicable to data centers:

High-density line-rate Ethernet port

Comprehensive Layer 2 Functions and comprehensive Layer 3 Functions

Fully Distributed, control and forwarding separation Architecture

Multi-CPU master module design

Redundant Design of all key components

Built-in complete DoS Prevention Mechanism

Non-disruptive forwarding technology, zero packet loss switching between redundant parts

In fact, the communication and traffic models between data center servers are very complex. Generally, a Processing request from an external server requires multiple servers to participate in the response at the same time, such as image server, WEB server, search server, and database server. The features of data center applications require the server to have high instantaneous throughput, which can reach hundreds of megabytes or even higher. Basic communication networks must also provide non-blocking and high-performance connections, which is especially urgent for internal communication in data centers. At the same time, with the development of layer-7 switches and Server Load balancer technology and its wide application in data centers, the CPU load of servers responsible for concurrent TCP processing has been greatly mitigated, the I/O throughput of servers is gradually increasing, which makes it necessary for servers to have larger network connection bandwidth. Force10 high-performance eseries high-performance Ethernet switches can meet the needs well.

The data backup of the data center server, especially the Database Synchronization, requires the server to exchange dozens of TB or even more data within a specific period of time, this also puts forward extremely high requirements on the server's continuous throughput capability. Now, the server itself has a gigabit line rate throughput capacity, requiring that the network connecting to the server must provide a high-performance gigabit connection. Sina network uses the Force10 E300 to connect a large number of search Server Clusters, providing a high-performance and non-blocking communication platform between servers, greatly improving the server response speed.

The purpose of the new data center proposed by the next-generation data center Forum NDCF is to reduce the overall operating costs while providing high performance and reliability. With the emergence of high-density and high-performance switches, the network structure of the new data center is moving towards reducing the flattening of network layers.

At present, the number of servers in the data center is increasing, and more nodes need to be connected by network devices. The wide application of blade servers has accelerated this trend. Small Servers Based on Intel, Windows, or Linux are expanding their data center server market share with their low-cost advantages. The rapid growth of Sina's business requires the data center to connect to and manage more servers.

Xinlang network administrators realized that the cost of data centers is not only the initial investment in the purchase of equipment and backup, but also the scalability, upgradeable performance, and total cost of ownership. The total cost of ownership of the data center includes the device cost, O & M cost, power consumption, air conditioning cooling, data center space, and future upgrade requirements. Obviously, the flat network structure is changed from a traditional three-tier structure to a two-tier network structure, which has obvious advantages in reducing long-term operation costs. According to the META Group Analysis Report, for data centers with 200 servers, the total TCO cost of the next-generation data center solution within five years is reduced by 59% ~ 81%.

Summary

Force10 eseries switches provide high-density Gigabit Ethernet ports and are connected to Servers configured with a Gigabit Ethernet Adapter. They provide non-blocking and high-performance communication between Server clusters. Force10 provides new solutions for next-generation data centers that require higher performance and lower total cost of ownership. Force10 eseries products have been used in data centers such as Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Rent-A-Car, ESPN, Friendster, Microsoft, and Baidu.