In the 5G era, Ruijie Networks' all-dimensional evolution of carrier data center capabilities

After the 5G commercial license was issued, the Mobile World Congress (MWC Shanghai 2019) successfully attracted major global mobile communications manufacturers. Ruijie Networks exhibited the next-generation network cutting-edge products and solutions in the four major sectors of "super, cloud, pipe, and terminal" at "MWC19 Shanghai", and hosted the "Carrier Data Center Network Technology Summit" at the same time.

Taking this opportunity, PConline reporters interviewed Duan Feng, general manager of Ruijie Network's operator system department, Yu Xiaolong, deputy general manager of Ruijie Network's operator system department, and Wu Hang, data center product architect of Ruijie Network's switch product division, to discuss how to help operators build a strong network foundation under the background of 5G.

For many industries, 5G's revolutionary network speed and functions bring more imagination and business prospects. Therefore, it is no exaggeration to say that 5G is a feast for all industries and applications. But for operators, in addition to more business possibilities, 5G also requires the ability and hard work to turn possibilities into reality. If 5G is a feast, then operators are the chefs responsible for preparing this feast.

At the MWC2019 Operator Data Center Network Technology Summit which ended not long ago, Duan Feng, general manager of Ruijie Network's Operator System Department, pointed out that under the background of digital transformation in all walks of life, various new technologies are being applied at an accelerated pace, and the demand for data centers will continue to explode in the future. Operators are the core force in the development of the data center industry.

▲Duan Feng, General Manager of Ruijie Networks Carrier System Department

5G will activate long-developed high-bandwidth applications such as VR, 4/8K, industrial interconnection, robots, drones, and holographic communications, bringing more business space to the operator network, but the larger data traffic will put more pressure on the network of the IDC room. The unique QoS function of 5G can meet the needs of more different levels of applications, and the support of massive IoT devices requires operators to deploy more and more powerful access layer devices. To improve the efficiency of network and data use, this requires the IDC room to be flexible and definable in the overall architecture, and to achieve data processing closer to the application through massive edge computing units.

It can be said that every detail innovation of 5G is a major infrastructure and architecture challenge for operators. So, as the core promoter of 5G, how should operators deal with these challenges?

Ruijie's 5G opportunities: Continue to focus on data centers to build a data foundation

With the rapid expansion of applications, both enterprise data centers and operator data centers are facing heavy network pressure from applications and data. At a time when data center network resources are already stretched thin and the industry is actively exploring new countermeasures and solutions, 5G is accelerating. It can be said that the combination of the two challenges has brought network challenges to the entire ICT industry.

At this point, what the data center needs to do is not only to upgrade the basic core and aggregation layers, but also to comprehensively upgrade the network architecture.

In a short period of time, this huge growth in demand caught many network solution providers off guard who lacked accumulation and deep understanding of the future. It will also allow some companies that have already recognized the situation and actively prepared to stand out.

"With the rapid growth of business applications such as mobile Internet, OTT video, and VR, the core switching interfaces of operators' data centers will quickly enter the 400G era. Operators also need data center infrastructure with higher bandwidth and lower cost per G bandwidth to meet the demand." Duan Feng said that for this reason, Ruijie is constantly innovating in the data center field, hoping to continuously match and lead the development trend of operators' data centers with data center network solutions that are lower power, smarter, and easier to operate and maintain, said Duan Feng.

At the same time, in terms of network functions, Ruijie has fully integrated RDMA with 25G network access equipment to achieve ultra-low latency lossless Ethernet characteristics within the cloud data center. This is crucial for the efficiency of large-scale data exchange in the 5G environment, and is the basis for 5G core networks and edge clouds to carry NFV applications. It is also the basic guarantee for 5G ultra-low latency business slices to carry applications such as Internet of Vehicles and drones.

On the other hand, the increase in the scale of data centers and the complexity of network structures have made network operation and maintenance workloads more onerous than before; and the large amount of data, multiple scenarios, and massive devices brought by 5G will obviously further increase the difficulty of network operation and maintenance. Therefore, how to achieve automated and intelligent network operation and maintenance is also one of the main challenges facing operators' data centers.

"To this end, Ruijie has built a network-based cloud data center operation and maintenance system based on the general trend of data center cloudification and multi-POD differentiation, providing users with a full range of data center intelligent operation and maintenance solutions that are in-depth in business and monitor both overlay and underlay," Ruijie data center product architect Wu Hang told reporters.

In the field of data center delivery, Ruijie has comprehensively and systematically standardized and streamlined its consistent high-quality operation procedures to ensure that users of all industries and sizes can obtain a consistent delivery experience. Yu Xiaolong, deputy general manager of Ruijie Networks' operator system department, told reporters that during delivery and subsequent operation and maintenance, Ruijie will also provide users with 7*24 hours of fault emergency plans and ensure that service managers, user support engineers and R&D departments can directly participate in the service process for users to improve the overall reliability of user data centers.

The power of network evolution

Of course, in the entire digital transformation process, Ruijie's attention is not only focused on the field of 5G operator data centers. At this MWC2019 Shanghai exhibition, Ruijie also brought a number of solutions including new open programmable switches, VDI+IDV integrated industry cloud desktop solutions, Wi-Fi6 access solutions, and 5G distributed indoor base stations.

As one of the companies that launched 400G core switches, Ruijie not only prepared a complete high-performance network infrastructure solution of 25G access, 100G aggregation, and 400G core for IDCs and large Internet data centers, but also fully embraced open source at the network system and application levels to provide users with flexible and forward-looking network software.

So far, Ruijie has delivered more than 500,000 25G high-speed ports to many users, helping dozens of data centers to build high-performance large-scale network clusters. Ruijie Network's data center products and solutions have been designed and deployed in data center networks of operators, BAT and other Internet companies, and the products are widely praised in the industry.

By continuously increasing investment in product research and development in recent years, Ruijie is making full efforts in the network and related fields and rapidly expanding its territory. In this full-dimensional evolution from research and development to products and then to solutions and services, Ruijie Network is also becoming a full-capability solution provider spanning operators and commercial, networks and applications.

For the market, Ruijie's growth means more intense competition and faster technological progress; for users, Ruijie's evolution means having another reliable partner for network technology and solutions.