Blue Smart Services (BSS) is a wholly owned subsidiary of Blue Consult, located in Krefeld, Germany. Its expertise lies in IT cloud management and cloud operation. As a cloud solution provider, its core competencies are in the operation and management of high-quality cloud and multi-cloud solutions as well as in the operation and services of cloud infrastructure.

BSS offers tailormade and scalable solutions for the digital businesses of today and tomorrow. With hosted business solutions, enterprises gain all the benefits of modern cloud computing solutions.

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Key requirement

BSS is currently running a commercial VMware virtualisation platform for its B2B hosting business. This VMware platform is built in two data centres. Each data centre has a set of VMware management nodes to ensure management of disaster recovery. Service resources are shared between the data centres. BSS wanted to establish a secondary cloud to serve its customers with the necessary cloud services.

The key requirements of this cloud were multi-tenancy, self-service provisioning, high availability of services and a reduction in total cost of ownership. Additionally, this was needed to meet the long-term evolution driven by bandwidth and intelligent services in the future.

Huawei solution and highlights

The Huawei solution consisted of CloudEngine 16800, CloudEngine 6881 and CloudEngine 5855 (CE16800, CE6881 and CE5855 respectively). A data communication network was established between the two data centres, creating a redundant platform.

As shown in the figure below, core switch CE16804 and access switch CE6881 were organised in a “spine-leaf mode”, to bring about more efficient transfer and scaling-out capabilities.

Two CE16804 switches in each data centre were virtualised into a logic fabric. Two fabric systems in each data centre were interconnected to maintain synchronicity and improve the reliability of the network. Spine and leaf switches were connected via 40G (capable of upgrading to 100G in time). The core switch can smoothly upgrade to 400G. This solution supports Border Gateway Protocol — Ethernet VPN (BGP-EVPN) functionality, and VxLAN can be enabled for wider and more efficient networking.

The design of the CE16800 and CE6881 switches is based on new architecture, and the chipset contains industry-leading features and performance. The CE16800 series has an embedded AI chip built for the era of artificial intelligence. It uses the innovative iLossless algorithm to learn and can train network-wide traffic. It can implement zero packet loss and end-to-end microsecond-level latency and achieve maximum throughput.

Using Huawei’s VRP8 software platform, the CE16800 series switches provide stable, reliable and secure high-performance L2/L3 switching capabilities to help build an elastic, virtualised and high-quality network.

CE16800 series

The CE16800 series switches use an advanced hardware architecture design. They provide up to 576*100GE, 576*40 GE, 2 304*25GE or 2 304*10GE line rate ports. The CE16800 series switches use an industry-leading backplane-free Clos architecture, and provide industrial-grade reliability. The switches support comprehensive data centre service features. Their front-to-back airflow design suits data centre equipment rooms, and the innovative energy conservation technologies greatly reduce power consumption.

CE6881 series

The CE6881 series switches are next-generation 10GE access switches that provide high performance and high port density on data centre networks. The CE6881 series has advanced hardware architecture, with 40GE/100GE uplink ports and high-density 10GE access ports.

Using Huawei’s VRP8 software platform, the CE6881 series switches support extensive data centre features and high stacking capabilities. In addition, the CE6881 series uses a flexible airflow design (front to back or back to front).

The CE6881 series can work with CE16800 core switches to build elastic, virtual and high-quality 40GE/100GE full-mesh networks, meeting requirements of cloud computing data centres.

The customer benefits

Higher performance: The Huawei CloudEngine 16800 service line cards and Switch Fabric Units use an orthogonal design, in which service traffic between line cards is directly sent to the SFUs through orthogonal connectors. This design greatly improves system bandwidth and evolution capabilities, enabling the system switching capacity to scale to more than 100Tbps. It can easily and smoothly upgrade from 40G to 100G to 400G with its high-density interface card, which makes this an infrastructure investment not only for current business expansion, but also long-term innovation.

AI powered for the AI era: With “AI brain” (its embedded AI chip), it is capable of advanced functioning, including fault prediction, edge decision making and network auto-optimisation. Its iLossless algorithm implements zero packet loss. It’s ready for the AI era.

VxLAN ready with BGP-EVPN feature: The CE16800 supports centralised and distributed VxLAN deployment, and supports various VxLAN access modes, including QinQ access VxLAN. This allows for flexible customisation of heterogeneous networks.

Low power consumption: The intelligent switching of power modules in milliseconds improves the power supply efficiency by 95% per rack-unit. The series boasts the industry’s first mixed-flow fans, reducing the power consumption per bit by 50%.

Openness and programmability enable agile deployment and operations and maintenance: The CE16800 uses the Open Programmability System (OPS) embedded in the VRP8 software platform to provide programmability at the control plane. It provides the standard NetConf interface for third-party software to invoke, that enables programming of functions and integration with third-party software, providing openness and flexibility.