Based on standard and hardware, an open switch can be deployed to deploy any network operating system that conforms to the standard interface, giving users more choices and supporting the formation of software-defined networks to better meet software-defined network and network functions. Virtualization. This is probably the ideal network device.
Open network hardware will continue to maintain high growth in the next two years. Dell EMC was selected by Gartner as one of the most promising companies, most notably Dell’s leader in open networks. In fact, Dell has done a lot in terms of open networks.
The traditional network pursues a big and the whole concept can no longer meet the demand
Is the difference between the new generation of network equipment and the old network equipment? Now the company, what kind of network need it? With these questions, we interviewed Xu Hai, general manager of Dell EMC Greater China Network Division, and listened to the experts’ comments.
Xu Hai, General Manager, Network Division, Greater China
Xu Hai said that the traditional network equipment pursues a large and complete, the operating system is generally closed design, integrated with many protocols and functional components, the purpose of this method is actually to simplify the supplier’s products, it can be a product, inside It contains a wide range of functions to meet the needs of different users and different scenarios. It is a very good model in the absence of alternatives in the past.
However, as customers add hundreds of protocols to the network operating system, the software operating system life cycle becomes a challenge. Any change in the user’s functional modules may cause changes in the upgrade of the entire network operating system.
According to a survey conducted by Dell EMC in the customer base, many customer feedbacks require only 5% of the functions in the traditional closed network mode, and 95% of the software users are not used at all. However, in the event of a failure of 95% of those software or functional modules, it may cause network downtime.
In addition, if these unused functional modules need to be patched and upgraded, it will cause temporary interruption of operations. Once the vendor packages these protocols and functional modules to the user, in fact, it means that the user has to pay more, and part of the cost is paid for the unneeded functional modules, which is a problem with the traditional closed network model.
In the new era, open source and software definition has become the main force
“In the network 2.0 mode, different users have different needs for the network. The micro-application on the network infrastructure system is more suitable for the flexible choice of different customers in the future.” Xu Hai fully affirmed the design concept of the new generation network equipment.
In recent years, many operators have been pushing NFV network function virtualization and then using x86 platform plus open source to do a variety of decoupling work. The need for network function virtualization in software-defined networking actually drives the development of open source software. The open source of the network operating system facilitates the decoupling of various functional modules, thereby realizing the ecology of a truly open network.
Different customers have different needs for the network, and enterprise customers need network stability more, and they prefer to use mature operating systems with vendor support. Service providers or operators are more inclined to open architecture. Whether it is China Mobile, China Unicom or US carriers, in the past few years, software and hardware architectures that prefer open architecture to drive networks have been decoupled. For enterprise customers, they can purchase network devices containing commercial operating systems directly from vendors. For service providers, they can purchase relatively standardized hardware from open network hardware providers, and combine open source software to build their own needs. Network Architecture. This approach provides greater flexibility and greatly reduces operator costs.
S4200-ON switch, born for the open platform
What about a software-defined switch? Dell’s recently launched S4200-ON switch with a commercial chip has a deep buffered, high-bandwidth 10/100GbE data center switching platform designed for top-of-rack and data center interconnect applications. this field can only use a dedicated routing solution program.
Dell EMC Greater China Network Marketing Manager Zhang Wei (left) and Dell EMC Greater China Network Division Sales Engineer Qi Di (right)
Introduce the S4200-ON switch
Compared to standard switches, the Dell Ian S4200-ON switch provides 500 times (Buffer) queues and 15 times (Table) tablespace. On a traditional switch, when the performance of a port or the whole machine reaches the bottleneck, the port will be blocked, and subsequent packets will be lost and cannot be queued. With the Deep buffer, all data packets are not lost, and they are directly queued and queued.
The S4200 is a performance-optimized open network switch that provides deep buffering for software-defined network applications and enhanced hardware table capacity for Internet routing or high-density flow tables.
Embracing open source, Dell EMC offers four delivery models
Then the focus is coming. At present, Dell Essence offers a variety of options to meet the diverse open network consumption patterns of different users.
Dell EMC not only insists on an open architecture at the hardware level but also actively promotes an open architecture at the software level. Xu Hai said that Dell officially released a network operating system OS10 last year. It is based entirely on the Linux kernel and can support more third parties. Users can flexibly customize the software to be deployed on OS10 according to their own needs. OS10 also provides a number of API interfaces that can be integrated with virtualization platforms. Currently, Dell is able to offer four solutions for users to choose from.
The first is the enterprise version of OS10. Users are first equipped with an open network switch from Dell EMC, which deploys the enterprise version of OS10. This enterprise version is an operating system developed by Dell EMC. It provides support for Dell EMC. After buying it, I will set up my own network through the switch.
The second model, from Dell EMC, buys an open network switch, on top of which there are several globally certified partners, such as BigSwitch, Cumulus, etc., which provide network operating systems that can be interfaced. The system is deployed to Dell EMC’s switches, and the new features can be offered to customers in certain areas.
The third mode is to deploy the OS10 open version on the hardware system. In fact, its system software is OpenSwitch open source software, which provides software targets that can be deployed on multiple different hardware switches.
The first four models are purely going open, download the OpenSwitch operating system. If you need the Layer 3 routing function and you need the switch to support Layer 3 routing, you can directly install the open source software.
In the era of Open Network 2.0, Dell Essence provides users with a variety of different consumption modes, which can meet the different needs of enterprise users to operators.
Dell vigorously promotes the popularity of 25Gb
25Gb can bring great advantages to customers. The most important function of Dell EMC’s 14th generation server is the 25G network connection. In 2018, the 25G market is developing rapidly. By 2020, the bandwidth of the 25G backbone network will exceed 10GB. Zhang Yi, senior manager of the network market of Dell EMC Greater China, believes that the era of 25Gb has arrived.
From a technical point of view, the PCIe usage rate of 25G is 78%, far exceeding 10Gb. 10G and 40Gb are just a transitional product. After the technology and market are mature, the mainstream products will be replaced by the 25Gb and 100Gb eras.
Zhang Yi, Senior Manager, Network Market, Greater China
Dell EMC’s vision is to provide 25Gb of bandwidth at a price close to 10Gb. It is the most difficult to construct the engineering wiring in the data center. The headers on both sides of the cable are corresponding. The user only needs to upgrade the SFP on both sides, and the 10Gb can be upgraded to 25Gb without the existing architecture. To be able to do the above, the appeal to the user will be enormous.
Software definition and open source have become an important direction for the development of network equipment in the new era. The application scenarios of users in the future are diversified, but at the same time, the network is still not so complicated. Therefore, the network with high efficiency and support for open source will be more Competitiveness. Dell Ianxin can provide 25Gb of bandwidth at a price close to 10Gb while supporting open source. It is enough to think about it.
Article source: http://www.chinabyte.com