As data volumes and network traffic continue to increase exponentially, organisations increasingly have to consider upgrading their data centre network infrastructure in order to significantly improve speed and performance.
The latest evolution in Ethernet and InfiniBand protocols allows data centre operators to achieve eye-watering network speeds of up to 40Gbps and 56Gbps respectively.
This is a far cry from the 1Gbps speeds found in the average South African data centre.
But while these advances present fantastic opportunities, it is important to take a strategic, phased approach to the deployment of new communications technologies. This approach generally yields the best results – most notably:
* Smoother transition – as hardware is replaced incrementally, there less risk of downtime;
* Less capex-intensive – there is no large once-off cost, the funds are applied over a period of time;
* Ensures users scale up as the business grows its requirements – at no point are you left over-capitalised with wasted infrastructure that is nowhere near capacity or full utilisation; and
* Maximises cloud efficiencies – ensures that you get the most out of your data centre environment at every step of the transition.
Says Raul Del Fabbro, Enterprise Solutions manager at distributor Drive Control Corporation (DCC), “The world of data centres is changing rapidly – as new trends like data centre consolidation, virtualisation, Cloud Computing, increasing storage demands, ‘Green IT’ requirements, hardening regulatory environments, and escalating energy costs all play a role in data centre designs.”
“Every organisation, and every data centre provider, has their own reasons for why faster information flows will enhance their business. Many of the reasons are found in areas like better Return on Investment (ROI), faster time-to-market, increased responsiveness to customers, and better agility in business strategy.”
Some of the sectors that stand to benefit the most from these next-generation data centre networks would include financial services companies, trading desks, telecoms operators, broadcasters, academic and research institutions, Web services companies, and natural resources exploration firms.
However, that is not to say that all larger enterprises shouldn’t be taking a close look at the speed of the connectivity in their data centres.
Perhaps the most important aspects to consider is ensuring that hardware lifecycles are synched correctly so the latest servers, switches, ports and networking are all complementing each other – and no one aspect is holding back the performance of other components.
This brings us to the hallmarks of a “future-proofed” data centre, and one that is well-prepared for phased upgrades: open standards and backwards compatibility.
Says Meytal Mar-Chaim, regional sales manager at Mellanox, of end-to-end InfiniBand and Ethernet interconnect solutions and services for servers and storage, “For example, the advent of software defined networking (an architectural approach allowing switches and routers to be controlled remotely and centrally) has meant that the importance of the interconnect is growing, and more and more organisations want to be able to better manage and better optimise it for their applications.
“Furthermore, the increased usage and development of open source software, such as OpenStack and OpenFlow enables larger eco-system and faster adoption.”
Backwards compatibility, in this case, refers to the latest generation of Ethernet or InfiniBand being compatible with previous generations of routers at switches – at least going back to a period of a few years. Backwards compatibility means that a phased approach to infrastructure upgrades becomes possible.
Ultimately, some organisations and data centre owners will opt for the arguably more progressive InfiniBand standard, while others prefer to stay with Ethernet (mostly due to a level of comfort they have developed with previous generations of the technology).
However, managing InfiniBand is as simple as Ethernet, and InfiniBand does enable not only higher performance at lower cost, but also simplified management.
While they may differ in technical characteristics, both have a well-defined innovation roadmap that will see speeds of 100Gbps becoming possible within the next couple of years.
However, irrespective of the communications protocol chosen in your data centre, the principles of open standards, backwards compatibility, and phased upgrades remain the same. These concepts govern the process of enhancing network performance in the data centre, whilst eliminating the need for the massive capital injections required in a complete overhaul.
