Application-driven change gathers network challenges in the cloud computing environment

The era of cloud computing has come, from the idea of speculation to real landing, users are busy deciding whether to choose a private cloud or a public cloud, service providers are busy building their own data center, can be described as "this side of the party to sing", is really lively, we see the Third-party platform to bring convenience, To see the cost savings of cloud computing for the enterprise, and for the network vendors who have been accustomed to being "behind the scenes", cloud computing is not a glamorous appearance but a real challenge. This change is mainly reflected in the rapid changes in server and storage.

First, according to IDC's http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/32268.html > survey, it is expected that by 2020, the server interface rate will increase by a hundredfold, from GE to 100GE; While storage data grew 44 times-fold, the 2020 data will climb to zettabytes, and there is no doubt that an era of data explosion has arrived.

Second, the server computing model makes the traffic flow from the previous "North-South Flow" to the "East-west traffic" change, while the server interface type has changed, from FC Evolution to FCoE, and the physical interface has evolved to virtual logic interface, the arrival of the IPV6 era is also an aspect.

In order to adapt to the changes brought about by these cloud business growth, the network began to need some new capabilities, the most mainly embodied in: elasticity, ease of use and openness of the three aspects.

Elasticity: Cloud computing business has a higher demand for capability and performance scalability, a new generation of networks needs to take into account the high performance and complexity of business processes, to adapt to the rapid changes in server and storage requirements, and the need for strong scalability, the future of large data storage capacity to make reservations design, To ensure that the server in the future for a long period of development needs, support server interface rate in the continuous evolution of ge/10ge/40ge/100ge. There should be a more flexible approach to IPV6 deployment to ensure the stability of the core layer, and so on.

Ease of use: into the cloud computing era, the traditional data center of the static server into a virtual machine, the network from "static" into "dynamic", so that the maintenance of data center increased the difficulty, requiring the network to be on demand, real-time, dynamic change configuration.

Openness: In such a combined environment, in order to avoid the risk of "kidnapping" by private technology, the openness of the network puts forward higher requirements, the standard of some industries is ready to be used, and the products need to develop network protocols and standards based on international/domestic standards to ensure the interoperability of mainstream equipment manufacturers in the industry. It should also be highly compatible with mainstream ICT vendors in the data center so that the options can be returned to customers.

And interestingly, before Cisco, Huawei, H3C three grand events and cloud computing has a close relationship, we say, and then cool new technology, their ultimate practice is the product, if there is no product support, and then advanced technology is just empty talk, and for the rapid development of cloud computing, many network manufacturers also closely follow the trend, Introduced a number of leading products and solutions.

Huawei has released the CloudEngine12800 series of switches, from the name also can be seen, this is a dedicated cloud-level data center switch, mainly for cloud computing data Center design, can provide up to 360T non-blocking switching network, to meet from Ge/10ge to 40ge/ 100GE 4 Generation server evolution requirements, and this is also configured extremely high-end series of products, single slot support 2Tbps bandwidth (one-way), the largest machine support 48Tbps switching capacity, while supporting 8*100ge,24*40ge,96*10ge and other ultra-high performance board, The machine can support up to 96 100GE, 288 40GE or 1152 10GE Full speed interface, which is designed to assist enterprise organizations to build a scalable, virtualized and converged data Center network architecture to help enterprise users and operators build a cloud fabric network architecture for cloud data centers.

And H3C is also walking in the forefront of the cloud computing era of the network manufacturers, it has a number of leading products: Data center-level core switches S12500, 100G platform based on a new generation of core router CR16000, high-end enterprise network for the core and converged Sr6600-x series high-end cloud business routers, Support Gaomi Gigabit Access and 40G interface uplink s5820v2 Tor switch, the domestic first 450M 802.11n wireless access device WA3600, and so on.

In a comprehensive way, cloud computing is an opportunity, for network vendors is more challenging, in the cloud network-related technologies, products and solutions, the original rule is being broken, the new rules are being set up, who will continue to lead in the cloud era in the forefront of the industry, it remains to be seen.

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)