Network new features not a data center can afford to play?

In recent years, cloud computing, large data and other technologies have been popular. But these technologies need to implement bottlenecks are on the network, the network needs to change the current mode of operation. As a result, a number of new technologies have emerged in the IP Ethernet world, including Trtll, SPB, virtualization, FcoE, Xlan, SDN, and so on. These new technology terminology quickly flooded the major professional websites and media, and soon these technologies have become the subject of many it people to comment on, of course, some data center professionals have a strong interest in these technologies, but these new technologies are not everyone can enjoy. Major network equipment manufacturers have launched their own network of new features, of course, will not forget to make a big buck.

In fact, these new network features have been emerging for several years, but the real deployment of the data center is very small, at least not scale.

First, these new features are more device-demanding and less capable than deployed, so only high-end network devices have the ability to deliver these new features. Since the new technology, of course, the old device can not support, the data center to deploy these features, it is necessary to purchase a batch of new network equipment, and these devices are basically high-end, the price is more expensive, so the deployment of these new network features need to buy a large number of expensive http://www.aliyun.com/ Zixun/aggregation/11585.html "> Hardware devices.

Second, even if you buy these devices that support the new features, it is far from over and you will need to pay separately to use these new features. Once saw a price list of a device vendor, virtualization only a virtual lot of technical software licensing costs up to 250,000/Taiwan. This also charges for the number of devices, a data center deployment of 10 high-end network equipment is very common, and only this software technology licensing is up to 2.5 million. If you still need to deploy Trill, SDN, and so on, also need to charge, so the construction of a network with a number of new features of the data center, the use of authorized software to invest tens of millions of yuan. Look at the technology, software-mandated giants, such as Microsoft, Qualcomm and so on, they are so much more moist, they can see how the profit here is amazing.

Third, these new characteristics of the implementation of high complexity, generally have service fees, service costs by the number of equipment. High-end network equipment If the original technicians on-site support, are charged with high service fees, by the number of charges. Cisco's service charge project on eight hundred flowers, generally are agents for service support, if the need for U.S. engineers to do on-site support, service prices are not cheap. Cisco also offers web-based training services, which, of course, are not free if they are involved in technical training on these new features.

Four, even if these new features are put into use, late-stage operations are also difficult, because a data center is difficult to find a few of these new technologies have a deep understanding of the technical staff, some new features have not even formed a standard, different equipment vendors of technical implementation details will be different, so that the data center maintenance difficult. Especially in the case of failure, it is difficult to find out where the fault occurred. So although the new technology is good, the investment is so large, if the maintenance of the poor will not bring a profound change in the data center.

Obviously, these new network features are not a data center that can afford to play, it is expensive to really deploy these new features in their own data centers. Network equipment vendors also saw the huge business opportunities here, almost unanimously shouted out the use of software to charge. Although the network technology has been developed for decades, but unlike the server domain, network technology is still in a monopoly, can launch these new features only the technical strength of the few, so they can open the charges. Cisco, for example, or even the application of network equipment to the characteristics of the charge, it will pack a variety of software features, and then you need to pack these features together for you, according to the characteristics you need to the number of unified fees, such a way to make Cisco make a big profit. With other network equipment companies catching up, and offering low-cost and even free network equipment to run software, Cisco gradually lowered its software charging standards, but still unwilling to free. These technologies are strong network technology vendors, always in the new technology popularization, promotion of the early use of technical advantages to make a fortune.

However, this way although for network manufacturers to create a high profit, but very bad for the development of network technology, this technology closed, old-fashioned. But internet makers are reluctant to open, free. This leads to the wool of these new features and the fact that the data centers that really use these new features are few and far between, and only those data centers that are not bad at money are willing to take a taste, and the new features without market testing are hard to generalize. In fact, compared to the open Linux system, the network standard protocol is also open, on the network can also find a lot of source code, but there is no free protocol system to use. Online protocols are a lot of bugs, also very few people to participate in development, and really understand the agreement technology is not many people, these talents are basically all major network vendors scramble to rob the object, and these big manufacturers signed a contract is to sign confidentiality agreement, this and Linux open source way is very different. Compared with the operating technology, the network technology is far from reaching the level of popularization. In addition, the development of network equipment and new features into a huge investment, such as to develop a high-end network equipment, investment in tens of millions of of the cost of research and development is not much, and network characteristics need to be in large-scale networking testing, verification, hardware development, testing investment is very large. If you do not charge the cost of software features, in today's highly competitive market environment of network equipment, it is difficult to recover costs only by selling hardware. Linux is different, as long as you have a PC can develop, research source code, this is tens of millions of of the technical staff can participate in the Linux operating system research.

In fact, data center users have long been fed up with this predatory method of compulsive buying, but there's nothing you can do about it unless you don't have the software, but the development of the data center does require these new features. Therefore, the data center is often entangled in, after all, compared with the network manufacturers, technically completely at a disadvantage, can only bite the bullet to buy these new features. It can be foreseen that the future cost of network hardware will be lower and higher, network manufacturers must use software to enhance the value of the equipment, so keep the new features software fees will remain the same in the data center, of course, with the popularization of technology, the price will become more and more civilian, but in a short period of time should not be able to wait for the new characteristics of the network free meal So, the new characteristics of the network is really not a data center can afford to play!