What is the main way to achieve savings with an open network solution?
We achieved savings in several main ways:
- White box switches are cheaper at each port than traditional well-known network providers. Depending on your discount level, you can save a lot of capital expenditure by simply switching to a white box, even considering the cost of a NOS (Network Operating System) license.
- We also used the QSFP-40G-LM4 optics. In this particular case, its cost is slightly higher than QSFP SR4, but much lower than QSFP LR4. It works with SMF and MMF, so we only store this one optics, reducing the need to maintain 2-3 different $600+ optics inventory. In addition, this simplifies the operation of the data center, but we have not tried to quantify it into actual dollars.
- White box NOS such as Cumulus Linux does not mandate the use of brand name optics, so you are free to choose the best option for you. The downside is that you have to test them in the lab before you promise to use them in production, but you can save a lot of money when switching from a brand name to an OEM version.
- We quit a commercial configuration management system that we use to deploy common configurations for all devices in the data center. We now rely on Puppet Community Edition to do the same thing.
- We can simplify the equipment deployment and replacement process and reduce the deployment time per switch by approximately 2 / 3rds. We need to pay less hours when building or replacing equipment. In addition, when we take over a new space, we will start paying rent on the day we walk in. We spend every day on construction space, including the cost of deploying hardware. By deploying faster, we can reduce the cost of unused space.
Are you investigating and investing in any new ways to build a data center network?
We have established a good relationship with Cumulus Linux. They have achieved success on this journey. Cumulus Linux is actively promoting what they call a “route on the host” solution. The main idea is to run a routing protocol on the server and peer with the switch. This completely eliminates the need for VLANs and STP. It also greatly simplifies automation and standardizes your network. We are investigating ways to move to this model to reduce network complexity and introduce more clearly defined abstract boundaries between applications and networks. By eliminating complexity and state as much as possible from the network, our goal is to explore more “quasi-system” network solutions.
Will open networks affect testing and configuration time and effort?
By combining automation with open network solutions, we realized that every expansion project had to let senior engineers select the equipment and carefully install it into the existing network. Today, we just entrusted this task to a junior engineer who can refer to the standard bill of materials, request a quote, place an order and deploy it all, without taking a minute to get it from an “expensive” senior engineer.
In addition, since the configuration is now standardized through automation and documentation, configuring the next batch of devices is as simple as copying a standard set of YAML documents and modifying loopback IP and BGP ASNs.
We can also model our network in virtual environments such as Vagrant / VirtualBox to test how most changes behave before they are submitted to the production code base and pushed out. Not only does this allow us to test changes in advance, so we enter the change window with high confidence, and also allow us to deploy many changes during production time instead of scheduling changes.
How do you manage the spanning tree problem?
At this point, we use EVPN and VXLAN in the data structure. VXLAN encapsulates Layer 2 frames into Layer 3 packets. With this, the underlying structure is layer 3, which eliminates the need for STP, so we don’t have STP at all, so we don’t have STP problems. We are also exploring the elimination of even VXLAN and EVPN to further reduce complexity and limit network requirements to BGP and ECMP support.
In our management network, we also use open network (white box) switches and Cumulus Linux STP still operate in the traditional way, where one uplink is the root port and forwarded, and the other link is blocked. So if you have STP, there is no change when you switch to the open network. You still need to consider the STP design and ensure that all ports are set to the correct STP mode, your bridge priority is configured in a predictable manner, and learn how to troubleshoot STP.
Original article from:https://www.optcore.net/
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