LI HONGBIAO ZTE’S VPIPE
Bearer networks IN THE AGE OF CLOUD FACE HUGE CHALLENGES
With the phenomenal growth of cloud-based service provision and storage, organisations must become more flexible for their network structure to be ready for the future. ZTE’s vPIPE solution can help, says Li Hongbiao , Chief Planning Engineer at the Chinese company.
W ith enterprises now placing a clear majority of their workloads in the cloud, it is safe to say that cloud service uptake is increasing at breakneck speed. It comes as no surprise that cloud computing is much more suitable to meet the needs of businesses in the 21st century by o ering fast, reliable speeds, user flexibility and widespread functionality at a fraction of the cost of the keeping the latest IT hardware and software on site, with its traditional diverse cost model of model of product ownership, maintenance, fixes and upgrades. Over the next five to ten years alone, more than half of the world’s information technology is set to be completely cloud based, with an increasing number of enterprises currently working on developing hybrid cloud strategies. It is fast becoming a standard solution for the enterprise world, with all industries migrating either partially, with the hybrid model, or wholly with a complete private cloud. Traditional networking infrastructure is buckling under the pressure, with very limited and expensive avenues of expansion to handle the increase in tra c. Previous processes of manually expanding networks by adding more nodes and layers is outdated and detrimental, not only e ecting the operator’s capital expenditure and operating expenditure, but impacting the company’s revenue and profit. The age of the cloud is well and truly here, and with it, comes a new string of challenges and potential problems. Network providers will see NEW CHALLENGES, NEW STRUCTURE
PIPE DREAM The ideal starting point for the transition into optimised cloud computing begins with the coupling of both the IP and optical layers in one single interface. ZTE’s vPIPE solution utilises SDN technology to keep the control plane of IP/multiprotocol label switching (MPLS) networks at the forefront, the forwarding equipment then migrates path computation element (PCE) to IP controller, and migrates the optical network control plane to the optical controller. There are three key aspects to the company’s solution. The first is the introduction of pipeline resource pooling. Similar to the pooling of servers and storage resources, this feature greatly improves the networks pipe resource utilisation by up to 60-80 percent. Furthermore, network virtualisation builds entire virtual IP networks on the cloud, making operation and management immensely more e cient and user friendly. Finally, improved network intelligence, enables the network to become flexible and adaptive to service changes as per customers specific demands. The optimal choice for cloud-bearing, The IP+Optical vPIPE solution can e ectively assist operators in building an e cient bearer network to o set the high-bandwidth services burdening the network, and it can e ectively reduce both capital and operational expenditure to upwards of 50 percent. In this cloud service era, the demand for more capacity will call for rapid development to the backbone of networks to keep up with increased tra c. With the addition of several bandwidth-draining services on the rise, it is essential that organisations become more flexible with their network structure to be ready for the future – and ZTE’s vPIPE can most certainly help .
huge challenges with the addition of bandwidth draining areas such as increased dependence on cloud computing, the availability of ubiquitous 4K video, and further adoption of virtual reality and augmented reality technologies. With each area developing into a fully functioning industry of its own, continued growth and demand will only increase the need for a flexible, adaptive network with the ability to acclimatise to the changes in speed of transfer, volume of data being downloaded/uploaded and reliable connectivity. ESSENTIAL SOFTWARE UPDATE Software Defined Networking (SDN) centralises control of the network by separating the control logic to o - device computer resources. It is with the introduction of SDN technology into IP+Optical networks and the implementation of pipeline resource pooling that will directly target the new demands faced by the network. SDN o ers several benefits for all sizes of businesses trying to move into a virtual environment. There are a multitude of uses the technology o ers for di erent organisations, including carrier and service providers, cloud and data centres, and enterprises themselves. The process o ers bandwidth on demand, which provides controls on carrier links to request additional bandwidth when necessary, as well as WAN optimisation and bandwidth scheduling. For cloud and data centres, network virtualisation for multi-tenants is an important use case as it o ers better utilisation of resources and faster turnaround times for creating a segregated network. Utilising SDN, enterprises can benefit from complete remote network access control and network monitoring.
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| ISSUE 11 | Q4 2017
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