How the data center server connects to the deployment

Due to the morphological differences of the data Center server (rack server, http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/13737.html "> Blade Server"), the wiring of server cabinets and network cabinets in pod is also different. This article describes the characteristics and differences of several data center cabling methods for EOR, MOR, Tor, and blade servers.

The data center plane layout usually uses the rectangular structure, in order to guarantee the refrigeration effect, usually will 10 to 20 cabinet to back-to-back side-by one line, forms a pair of machine Shing (also called a pod). Pod cabinets are used in front and rear ventilation mode, cold air from the front of the cabinet and from the back of the plate from the rear, thus in the cabinet back-to-back placed in the middle of the pod formed a "hot channel" between the adjacent two pod formed a "cold channel." Heat channel is to CRAC (room air-conditioning), hot air flow along the hot channel back to Crac, and then start a new cycle.

The following figure, each pod consists of a server cabinet and a network cabinet, in which the server cabinet occupies the majority. Because of the server's morphological differences (rack servers, blade servers), there are also differences in how the server cabinets and network cabinets are routed in the pod.

Cabling of rack-type servers: Switch EOR (end of Row) wiring method

When using switch EOR wiring mode, each pod in the two-row cabinet of the most side of the 2 network cabinets, all the server cabinets in the pod on the assembly line racks, wiring racks of copper cable extended to the pod's most-side network cabinets, network cabinets installed access switch. The rack server is installed in the server cabinet, and the server network adapter is connected to the rack in the cabinet through the jumper (copper cable) as shown in the picture.

Switch EOR wiring mode characteristics:

Switch EOR wiring is the most common way. Typically, before the server and access switch is installed, the wiring of the server cabinet to the network cabinet has been completed, and the device (server/switch) installation and jumper work is done in the server cabinet and in the network cabinet.

If the power of each rack server is 500W and the power output power of each server cabinet is measured in 4KW or 6KW, a 42U-high server cabinet can install 8-12 rack servers.

Disadvantages of Eor wiring method: From the server cabinet to the network cabinets more copper cable (about 20-40 copper cables), and the farther from the network cabinets of the server cabinet copper cables, in the computer room, the longer the wiring distance, resulting in cable management and maintenance workload, flexibility is poor.

Switch mor (middle of Row) cabling is an improvement to the EOR wiring approach. The MOR network cabinet is deployed in the middle of two rows of pod cabinets, thereby reducing the distance from the server cabinet to the network cabinet, simplifying the cable management and maintenance.

Cabling for rack-top servers: Switch Tor (top Rack) cabling (Real large data center deployment scenario)

The switch Tor wiring is the expansion of the Eor/mor way, the use of Tor wiring, the pod in each server cabinet in the upper end of the deployment of 1-2 two access switches, rack-type server through the jumper access to the cabinet of the switch, the switch uplink port through copper or light access to the eor/ Mor in the network cabinet of the converged exchange. As shown in the figure

Tor Wiring style Features:

The Tor wiring simplifies the wiring between the server cabinet and the network cabinet, with fewer fiber or copper cables from each server cabinet to the Eor/mor network cabinet (4-6 root).

High density of servers in cabinets. For a standard 19-inch-wide, 42U-high cabinet, if the switch Tor wiring, each cabinet can be deployed 15-30 1U height of the rack-type server (the specific number of needs to consider the power of a single server and cabinet power output).

The disadvantage of Tor cabling: Each server cabinet is limited by power output power, the number of servers can be deployed is limited, which leads to insufficient access port utilization of the switch in the cabinet. A total of 1-2 access switches between several server cabinets can solve the problem of low utilization of switch ports, but this adds to the cable management workload.

From the network design considerations, the Tor wiring way of each access switch on the VLAN will not be many, in the network planning also try to avoid making a VLAN through the convergence switch across multiple access switches, so using the Tor wiring network topology, the range of each VLAN is not too large, The number of ports included is not too large. However, for EOR cabling, the port density of the access switch is high, and the VLAN with more ports may exist when the network is originally designed.

Tor Way of access to the number of switches, EOR way of access to a small number of switches, so the Tor network equipment management maintenance workload.

How to route a blade server

The blade server for the integrated Blade switch does not need to consider the jumper from the server to the access switch/or wiring rack in the cabinet installation, just consider the wiring mode of the upstream port of the blade switch. The rack-only server needs to have jumper connections for each server. For example, a 42U server cabinet with 10 1RU rack-mounted servers, 1 access switches, and a TOR wiring approach will see 22 power cords (both servers and switches are configured with redundant power supplies), 10 KVM lines, and at least 30 twisted pairs ( Each server has two business cards and one Management network card, 2 fiber (switch uplink port), this does not include the connection external storage and other devices of the cable, significantly messy. For a blade server configured with 10 server modules and 2 switch modules, only 2 power cords, 1 KVM lines, and 4 optical fibers are required. Therefore, blade server in the computer room cabling management than the rack-type server has obvious advantages.

Integrated switch module blade server mainly uses eor/mor wiring, but this kind of EOR wiring and rack-type server Tor wiring mode is basically the same characteristics, as shown in the figure. The server completes the network connection in the server cabinet, the cable from the server cabinet to the Eor/mor network cabinet is mainly the light of the blade switch upstream convergence switch, and the quantity is few. But the blade server's density is higher than the rack-type server, so the power output of a single cabinet and the requirements of the room refrigeration environment are higher.

The use of pass-through module of the blade server wiring can be divided into Eor/mor and Tor two kinds, as shown in the two ways, the characteristics of the same as the rack-type server, this is no longer to repeat.