August 8, 2017 at 18:46And again, Huawei Cloud Fabric: what is SDN architecture and what does it eat with
Not so long ago, we talked about the integration of Huawei Cloud Fabric SDN solutions with the VMware vSphere platform and talked about the benefits that this integration brings.
This time I would like to pay more attention to software-defined networks (SDNs), the business benefits that can be derived from their use, and directly the Huawei Cloud Fabric SDN solution for data centers.
The industry dictates its rules
Businesses are increasingly using virtualization and cloud technology to increase efficiency, improve processes and gain competitive advantages.
Corporate data centers are evolving in the direction of cloud environments based on virtualization, which has become a banal necessity for business, and not some kind of know-how.
The logical chain is quite simple:
1. Virtualization of computing resources and storage resources in combination with automation of management and orchestration made virtualization of the workload possible;
2. In turn, workload virtualization allows IT systems managers and application developers to quickly create new instances of services and applications in the data center.
Increasing throughput when connecting independent workloads and any related services through the network until recently has been one of the main “growth points”, however, the increased pace of development of virtualized resources for computing and data storage dictate new game rules.
The advent of software-defined networks initiated the emergence of more flexible systems for determining and configuring network paths and externalizing the network control plane from individual devices. This “outward” control plane, which determines the logical topology of the network, now represents a close-up view of the network and provides flexible network optimization based on criteria adapted to the operational aspects of the environment.
From the point of view of external integration, this SDN controller is preferable due to software interfaces that allow systems to work together and in concert with other components of the data center.
Huawei is responsible
Cloud Fabric, Huawei’s SDN data center solution, offers companies an easy-to-use and extremely open SDN architecture that can scale in one direction or another to work with any size data center environment while providing the flexibility and integration necessary for rapid deployment of new applications and services.
Intelligent system center - Agile Controller. It provides centralized, highly resilient and intelligent control plane capabilities for the data center network structure built on Huawei's CloudEngine switching platform.
Huawei's Agile Controller for Data Center is designed as a fully open source solution that provides seamless integration with popular third-party industrial solutions through an open and standardized software interface (API).
What are the key benefits that a software-based networking approach to the data center infrastructure in general, and Cloud Fabric SDN solutions in particular, entails?
And most importantly, what impact can these benefits have on the business?
Internal processes
First of all, the emergence of software-defined networks brought a tangible improvement in IT processes in data centers, depending on changes in the network or its reconfiguration to deploy complex services or applications.
Previously, network planning, designing new instances of applications and preparing them for the changes necessary for support, carried out either manually or by means of brute automation. But thanks to the development of SDN, new levels of integrated automation, preparation and management of network orchestration capabilities, which include virtualization platforms for computing and data storage, have become available.
The gain in time and resources needed to prepare the network elements and components for new applications varies from five to thirty.
In addition, the integration of SDN with all other data center resources forms the foundation for creating truly private cloud-based self-service platforms, allowing end users to independently request and independently provide cloud services within their corporation. Reducing the volume of manual processes leads to a reduction in operational overload, accelerating the launch of new applications and services on the market, as well as reducing the cost of deployment.
In addition, the improved operational control provided by the Huawei Cloud Fabric SDN solution (due to the wide network-wide telemetry collection combined with big data analysis) provides a higher level of automation in demanding operation and maintenance tasks.
Large-scale, high-level and at the same time very detailed vision and intelligent analysis of network status through Agile Controller allows you to identify, isolate and eliminate the consequences of errors and failures faster and more efficiently. A direct increase in uptime reduces the negative impact on business and reduces the need for human resources.
Resource Efficiency
Improvements in data center IT processes provide a natural increase in the effectiveness of the organization as a whole.
1. In addition to increasing operational efficiency, SDN allows the network to independently provide internal balance and make adjustments to optimize traffic flows through the infrastructure.
At the same time, the possibility of self-optimization extends not only to the local data center network, but also affects the data center interconnection (DCI) when using the Huawei SDN architecture.
2. In addition to combining corporate cloud resources distributed across various geographical locations, a competently optimized DCI provides a much higher utilization rate of available resources, increasing it from 30% to an average of 90%.
As server virtualization has shown, improving resource efficiency directly reduces operating costs while significantly increasing the life cycle of data center resources.
Increasing competitiveness
The speed and flexibility brought to corporate data centers using Huawei's SDN solution creates an environment that shifts the technical focus from the delivery mechanisms of services and applications to the services and applications themselves, and therefore reduces the time it takes to launch new applications to the market. These applications or services can be either internal, which contribute to the improvement of processes that improve the experience of the end customer, or external, which enrich the interaction and relations with the customer. The shift of focus from processes to capabilities allows platforms to quickly and innovatively develop user experience, giving an impetus to overall competitiveness, regardless of industry.
Open solutions
With its openness and integration capabilities, Huawei's SDN solution is industry leading. What does this mean for business?
A truly open SDN solution not only provides the user with basic integration at the interface level through standard APIs, but also provides interchangeable key components in the solution architecture, while still providing a high level of functionality and reliability.
This goes beyond the simple implementation of standardized interfaces — we are talking about building an affiliate ecosystem of tested and certified solutions from various manufacturers that can be customized to unique requirements in any environment. Providing connectivity based on standard and open technologies for various network components, such as an SDN network controller or cloud orchestration platform, the open solution provides not only adaptability to specific requirements, but also a serious future for the development of the entire system.
Eventually
As the technical benefits of SDN become more apparent, the importance of understanding how this development of network technologies can directly contribute to achieving business goals is growing.
Despite the fact that many of the advantages listed here are typical for SDN technology in general and are inherent in most SDN solutions, two important differences of Huawei's data center solution distinguish it from others:
1. The Huawei Cloud Fabric integrated unified SDN solution provides uniform integration capabilities SDN for both the data center's local area network, and for interworking (DCI) and network-attached storage (SAN) systems.
2. The wide interchangeability and open character of both the architecture as a whole and the approach to each component of the solution in particular, provide maximum integration opportunities, flexibility and the life cycle of the infrastructure in the context of an extensive ecosystem and industry partnership.
As many SDN providers appear on the market declaring similar benefits, Huawei can offer global coverage, a high level of usability, corporate support and partnerships, an extensive research investment and an open industry-wide approach.
In connection with all of the above, your user experience with Huawei Cloud Fabric is critical to us, and we ask you to share it with us more actively.
