Mixed cloud networks face challenges SDN or solutions

In a mixed cloud setting, a portion of the service runs in the customer's device, and a portion of it runs in the service provider's cloud. The workload is split into specific specifications, and businesses often determine where service elements are run based on performance, availability, privacy, cost, and other considerations. So far, however, many customers are hesitant to implement a hybrid cloud because of concerns about whether the deployment model meets their needs.

To highlight this urgent problem, an analyst at Microsoft has evaluated an application performance that is ideally suited for hybrid cloud architectures: Applications based on distributed MapReduce. This application is three times times faster in private data centers than it does in separate data centers and public cloud services.

If providers want to attract customers ' interest in mixed cloud deployments, they need to address the limitations of their existing environment. The large number of public cloud elements, if to be strong, will help improve the hybrid cloud support. Candidates for upgrades include virtual computing performance, system functionality, and security assurance performance. Networks that connect private data centers and public clouds are another area of improvement for providers that own and run these networks.

Whether the operator offers only Internet connectivity to cloud services, or offers consolidated packages, including Web services, connectivity needs are reliable, responsive and resilient to customer needs, cloud services themselves make the hybrid cloud work for customers.

SDN is a hybrid cloud network solution?

The current situation of hybrid cloud networks is that elements in many different domains must be connected together to deliver a responsive, resilient platform that is close to the needs of a hybrid cloud computing customer. Available network services combine network elements from many key areas: IP routing, wireless and wired access, urban and regional aggregation, package and light cores, and other domains. In most cases, it involves consolidating multiple vendor platforms. But in the current implementation, operators are limited by their own support for a variety of services, can not provide mixed cloud computing requirements of flexibility and responsiveness.

To overcome these complex problems, the service provider Cloud network needs to evolve and become a fast-responding network for customer needs. Software definition Networks (SDN) may be an inherent challenge for operators in hybrid cloud networks. SDN uses cloud-like design implementations to abstract software from the underlying hardware and release both.

Architecture, SDN allows for an abstract definition of network services, which covers a wide range of heterogeneous network elements. These elements can be described in a variety of domains, such as Wired city aggregations or fiber cores. These abstract services run on the control Panel, where the control panel exists between the underlying element and the element that is running on it.

To build this uniformly defined network service tier, operators can simplify and accelerate the process of introducing new products. Ultimately, providers can overcome some of the key hurdles they face and create more attractive services for hybrid cloud computing customers. What about them? You can use SDN to implement a more direct approach to creating a service with latency, capacity, resiliency, security, or activation time assurance that can be aligned with the mix of cloud computing customer needs. Go back to the aforementioned Microsoft researcher on MapReduce experiments in a mixed cloud environment, the SDN-driven network design can help operators solve latency and capacity problems.

Of course, this is theoretically the benefit that SDN can bring to a mixed cloud customer. Will cloud providers eventually embrace SDN? Early indications were that operators did find the charm of this approach, and the SDN core global corporate cloud of NTT was already on the market, and the German telecom Terastream project in the trial phase used SDN to strengthen its cloud network services. But this is only two examples of innovation in this field. For cloud providers, the key issue is not just what SDN delivers in a hybrid cloud deployment, but also what additional services can be bundled and how to quickly create a deployment.

(Responsible editor: Fumingli)