China's data center construction usher in a new era

With the dual drive of information technology and application, the construction, management and operation of data center are constantly being adjusted and improved. Energy efficiency and intelligent management will lead the direction of data center technology and application change. The further integration of it with the data center industry will open up new horizons for the development of the data center industry.

April 10, sponsored by the China Computer newspaper, "2014 China Data Center Conference" in Beijing New Century Hotel held. The Annual China Data Center Conference is the seventh session of the Year. The theme of this Congress is "energy efficiency for first management." In a speech to the General Assembly, Liu Jingping, editor-in-chief of the China Computer newspaper, noted that the large amount of unstructured data generated by the new applications represented by social applications and mobile computing had a significant impact on the underlying platform behind service delivery. But in the cloud computing, large data, mobile computing and other technology trends, the changes in the Data center field has undoubtedly become the technology evolution of the IT industry vane.

With the dual drive of information technology and application, the ways and methods of data center construction, management and operation are being adjusted and improved. Simplification and management are the major trends of technology change in the field of data center. In this context, the Conference focused on the data center of Energy efficiency and intelligent management, hope that the industry users of the data Center for reference and guidance.

Traditional data centers have clear boundaries and users, and because of the impact of cloud computing, large data, mobile computing and social applications, the boundaries of a new generation of data centers are being broken and users are becoming more widely used by PC users. Wu Josong, general manager of Beijing Credit Suisse Software Systems Co., Ltd. says the current data center faces four challenges, including energy efficiency, safety, compliance and ongoing operations.

To migrate to a new generation of data centers, users have to develop a good roadmap. "In the future, functional devices in the data center will become virtual machines, which is a huge challenge for users." "We provide a data center Virtual machine version that follows the standard format for open source," Wu Josong said. Users can download virtualized application Delivery Gateway products from our website. We will provide a one-year free service. ”

Since last year, the concept of software-defined data centers has become known. From the Software Definition Network (SDN) to the software definition store, it seems that all aspects of the data center can be defined by the software. As a pioneer of software network change, the goal of the company is to further simplify the management of the network and reduce the cost through SDN and NFV (Network function Virtualization).

The SDN is to separate the control layer of the network equipment from the conversion layer, and the control layer is taken out as a controller to control the hardware conversion behavior. In NFV, the basic functions of the network have not changed, but the past hardware platform from the proprietary hardware into the x86 platform. "NFV is manipulated, and Sdn is a manager, providing a very high flexibility, both complementary and two basic units of a software network." "Bo Ke company China technical manager Yuzhanyun said."

In software network, brocade not only supports all virtualization platform, including network function virtualization, virtual router, virtual operation platform and so on, but also supports different types of customers, including cloud service provider and enterprise customer. Brocade invests a large amount of money each year in the development of software network, also set up specialized software department, and actively participates in the work of relevant international standard organization.

Entering the big Data age, the data becomes the strategic asset of the enterprise, so the importance of storage is becoming more and more prominent. In addition to the increasing amount of data, the growth of unstructured data is much larger than structured data, which puts a higher demand on the entire storage system. Wave Company storage expert Cochimbon that storage security, green is the trend of the general.

In recent years, the wave in the high-end storage area to achieve a new breakthrough, one of the representatives is the mass-level storage system AS10000. In mass storage, the wave emphasizes the consolidation of heterogeneous storage, which lowers the overall cost of ownership of storage, enables efficient storage configuration and management, and ensures high availability of applications. "Our mass-storage systems are modular and can be scaled horizontally." "The wave also provides a high-density container data center solution, putting all computing resources, storage resources and cooling systems in one container," Cochimbon said. ”

Review of the history of data center storage System development, Hangzhou letter Nuclear Data Technology Co., Ltd. Vice President Dong Ji Yuan will be the traditional purchase of a hardware box called Data Center storage building a plan, the Internet enterprise based on open source file system deployment of storage systems known as Plan B. Mr Tung thinks there is a problem with both plan A and Plan B. For example, the storage box purchased by a user in Plan A is not easy to achieve capacity and performance expansion, while the storage system built by the Internet enterprise in Plan B requires a large number of maintenance personnel, and its storage-building model is not easily emulated by commercial enterprises. In view of the problems of plan A and Plan B, Hangzhou Letter Nuclear Data Technology Co., Ltd. launched the plan C.

Mr Tung explained: "Our plan C does not expect to solve all the problems with the Distributed file system, but solves the problem at the block level and instruction level, providing an interface to the front-end application exactly the same as the traditional disk array, no matter what new type of Distributed file system can run on our platform. Our goal is to abstract and standardize all storage resources for various types of applications and device calls. ”

The user has generally accepted the data center modular construction way. Modular data centers are not only deployed quickly and flexibly, but also reduce costs and energy consumption. Today, many manufacturers have given new features to modular data centers, such as intelligence and prefabrication.

Shenzhen zhongxing Network Letter Technology Co., Ltd. launched the M2DC Modular data center deployment faster, the cycle is usually 3-6 months. M2DC Modular Data Center has been widely deployed abroad, and has been applied in the construction of intelligent city projects in China. "Our micro-modular datacenter solution can be tailored to the needs of different customers and has end-to-end delivery capabilities." "Our micro-module data Center is able to stand out because we have a professional data center team, including many experienced data center design and operational experts," said Hu Jiping, ZTE's product director. ”

A multinational company may also have multiple data centers on a global scale. If these distributed data centers can be turned into a unified pool of resources, unified scheduling and management, not only can improve the overall energy efficiency of the data center, but also effectively reduce costs and shorten the data center deployment cycle. To this end, Huawei has put forward the idea of building a distributed cloud data center with high energy efficiency management, and verified the feasibility of this idea through the practice with partners.

Yang Meilei, director of Business Solutions at Huawei it product line data center, said the key to building a distributed cloud data center for energy-efficient management is: first, to achieve the use of a multi-tenant resource pool; second, to achieve a unified resource scheduling across the data center; third, to achieve the elasticity of automation flexibility. "Distributed data centers can shorten the deployment cycle of the datacenter from the previous months to the minute level." "In the Distributed data center, Huawei is applying for a patent, which is to use SDN to achieve a smooth transition of the network from the three-tier architecture to the two-tier architecture," he added. "The concept of distributed data centers should be used for disaster preparedness, which is what people call a double live data center today." Yang Meilei said that in the future, when data centers become a service, distributed data Center architecture is a fundamental prerequisite.

Energy Efficiency Management First

What does a cloud data center look like? Although the industry does not have a unified definition, but the department of Shuguang Data Center Product Division general manager Shen Weidong summed up the cloud data center should have the basic characteristics: green, reduce the overall cost of ownership, modular, can quickly deploy, expand, intelligent, realize the automation of the whole computer room management; Two-layer fusion and double-layer separation.

Data center includes four levels: architecture, data center infrastructure, IT hardware system and software system. Shen Weidong explained: "In the cloud data center, the data center infrastructure layer should be merged with the IT layer more tightly, and the building should be stripped out from the construction of the data center, this is the two-layer fusion and the double layer separation as described above." The advantage of separation is that data center construction speed will be faster, the advantage of integration is to achieve the unified management of different equipment and energy saving, improve reliability, controllability and so on. ”

There are many ways and means to realize the green of data center. Shen Weidong that in order to improve the efficiency of the data center, the most important thing is to solve the problem of airflow organization. "At present, the user is the most use of the engine room level of airflow organization, but this way has been proved to be unable to effectively save energy." If you want to achieve a better energy-saving effect, you must find ways to reduce the loss rate of air supply. Shen Weidong said, "Another important means to achieve the Green data Center is to change the compressor to fluorine pump, known abroad as ' to compressor." ”

With the idea of a modular datacenter, modular UPS has become the preferred UPS solution for many data center users. Compared to the traditional ups, modular ups has some notable advantages: it has a very high scalability, can be online expansion, and easy to maintain; with high reliability, the redundancy between power modules can ensure the continuous operation of the system, using multilevel decentralized control theory, each module can be hot-swappable, maintenance simple.

"Modular UPS itself has the characteristics of high efficiency and energy saving, it can better support the green of the data center." "Leading modular UPS manufacturer Dalian Baoli Power Supply Co., Ltd. engineer Meng Yaning further explained that" modular ups with high efficiency, non-polluting, low energy consumption, scalability and so on, very suitable for the application of Green data center. Modular UPS has been widely used in telecommunications, finance, e-government and other fields. Compared with the traditional UPS, modular UPS saves the purchase and operation cost, and the room footprint. ”

Improve the energy efficiency of the data center, in addition to UPS, refrigeration system is also one of the key components. Shenzhen Technology Co., Ltd. Deputy general manager Wang Tiewang said users should achieve the data center of efficient refrigeration and natural cooling balance design. The Pue value is a familiar metric for measuring energy efficiency in data centers. Pue value from 2 to 1.5, you need to adopt efficient refrigeration technology and hot and cold channel closure technology, and then further down to 1.2, may be used to natural cooling. Like Yahoo, Google's data center, its pue value is close to 1.1, they rely on the fresh air cooling system, which is the most direct natural cooling.

Wang Tiewang said: "All of our refrigeration solutions are built around efficient refrigeration and natural cooling, integrating a variety of natural cold sources, both direct and indirect." We help telecom users to deploy integrated fresh air natural cooling systems, with efficient humidification and powerful filtration capabilities to make refrigeration systems more efficient. ”

Many of the problems of data center construction will eventually come down to the two points of "electricity" and "space". Therefore, how to optimize the computer room environment, save room space, improve energy efficiency is very important. The US global network has since 2009 provided a comprehensive solution to the physical layer of the data center. The software and hardware integration System of SmartZone network can monitor dozens of indexes of network link, electric power, temperature and humidity of data center room, analyze the dynamic parameter, let the user know what is happening in the data center in real time, and where is the potential trouble spot. Liang Jun, technical director of Pan-DA Network in the United States, said: "We also have a unique skill, that is, by virtue of our rich experience and advanced technology, we can predict the number of years, the data center of power, temperature and humidity, air flow and so will be problems, so as to help users optimize the data center. ”

"Through our simple and efficient wiring system, we can help users save 40% of the cooling power consumption, 14% of the vertical distribution rack space and 30%~70% installed time." "Liang Jun said.

Data Center Lifecycle Management

Many people think of the data center, they will consider its construction and operation is a long-term thing, but in fact, the data center is also a life cycle. HP's statistics show that, typically, the data center has an average operating time of 12 years, and 40% of customers update their data centers within 10 years. "Data centers are moving toward higher performance, leaner, more automated, and dynamic resource allocation," said Bu Hongyi, senior consultant at HP Enterprise Group Technical Services, China. With the impact of virtualization, cloud computing, and large data waves, data center users are more concerned with energy efficiency and sustainable management. ”

HP is able to provide users with data center lifecycle services, including the data center of the early consultation, planning project, process design, certification and so on. "We can provide data center ' turnkey ' engineering services and be able to improve energy efficiency and achieve sustainable management of data centers." "Bu Hongyi said.

Intel also has a data center management platform that includes both energy management and remote management. Intel Data Center Software Solutions Department senior business manager Cheng says the unique feature of the Intel Data Center management platform's energy management is that it enables trend analysis and cross-platform support. Energy Management module can collect the temperature, energy consumption and other information and analysis, for each machine in the Data center optimization deployment to provide recommendations. Intel Energy Management Architecture supports all major protocols.

The Data Center Lifecycle service is systematized, including the links between each link is not independent, but mutual cohesion, thus constituting a set of service system.