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The ‘connected’ world economy, where all signs point to a continuation of the explosive data growth, companies more than ever rely on data centers. Colt has already focused on the concept of virtualization before software defined networking (SDN) is a hip trend was whether the term network functions virtualization (NFV) was conceived. What steps Colt took to transform into a provider of virtualization and data center services
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ICT infrastructure of companies is becoming increasingly complex. Their digital business models also require constant innovation. Companies must implement new structures and continually weigh up to develop technology in-house or to buy into this. Now trends such as enterprise mobility, big data and Internet of Things (IoT) continue their advance, it is crucial that the underlying network and data center infrastructure 100 percent available, flexible and safe for optimal support of business applications that run on it . Carriers and operators need to think about ways to keep these developments and competition
More and more demanding
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“Our main strategic goal is to transforming a traditional operator to a company that offers integrated ICT and network, “says Ben Timmer, country DCS operations manager at Colt. “We want to offer our customers the opportunity to purchase a seamless service instead of a series of components. Our clients come up with new demands. The emphasis is shifting from transactions to the user experience. That goes for all companies that deal with increasingly demanding business users inside and outside the company walls.
For what you might call a precursor of a NFV initiative Colt called on functionality network virtualization as part of the strategy to remove physical Layer 3 devices from the premises of business customers. Instead wild colt services as VPN connections and Internet access offer based on a combination of software solutions (virtual customer premises equipment) and more powerful performance Layer 2 devices in IP-based network edge. The objective was twofold: cost and complexity reduction and expand service offerings
vCPE
Colt operates Because of the focus on the business sector, a relatively small number. large customers. It is not so much about the volume but rather to the complexity. This business focus calls for quick configuration of services that the customer wants to use. The traditional techniques proved inadequate for this purpose. In the past weeks, for example, lost customers to set up connections. This required both manual configuration work as remote configuration. The use of virtual customer premises equipment (vCPE) makes it possible to roll out these services in a matter of hours. A vCPE often runs on standard hardware, reducing the cost per unit are much lower than with traditional physical CPEs.
In addition to transforming the customer network / EDGE network to an environment with a stronger virtualized character Colt also virtualizes the networks within their own data centers. Timmer says: “Our primary data center in Paris serves about five hundred customers, and we were faced with the task to migrate them from an aging infrastructure that was no longer supported.
Colt has twenty European data centers. The first virtualization phase has been completed in four of them, including those in Paris and Roosendaal. The remaining data centers will be virtualized in the next eighteen months
Goodbye complexity
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The Colt data centers originally had a complex structure. There were manual, physical connections to various networks in order to create a comprehensive service offering. One of the main objectives was to make the network “programmable.” This stems from the fact that networks in the course of the years have evolved into complex, inflexible, and costly closed systems. The main reasons are a lack of networking principles and abstractions (ie a good “control plane”) and a lack of open network APIs. This is in contrast to the ‘computing’ layer, which is open, has a high level of abstraction and the cloud paradigms (automation, virtualization, elastic, on-demand) supports.
programmable networks, the computing principles applied to the network, and in addition to the applications, and networks to communicate with each other. To make that possible, its three components are required:
• Software defined networking to separate the data and the control plane of each other and standardize the basic netwerkabstracties (per-hop and overlay)
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• Software driven networking focuses on network APIs, allowing applications and network to exchange information.
• Network functions virtualisation to consolidate all the various network devices.
In addition, was striving to achieve cost savings. One problem was the limited scalability of the old infrastructure. It took effort to meet the demand for multiple 10 Gbit / s connections for connecting servers, storage and other ICT components
Cloud Centric Networking
In order to achieve these objectives Colt launched the Cloud Centric Networking (CCN) initiative, which was used CloudStack (open source cloud computing software) and VMware vCloud for managing cloud resources. VMware NSX (a combination of Nicira and vCloud functionality) and switches from Arista Colt was able to implement an overlay sdn solution. This meant that the existing equipment does not have to be completely replaced.
“With VMware NSX we could disconnect the data center network from the underlying physical hardware,” explains Mirko Voltolini, vice president of Architecture and Technology at Colt, increasing. “This resulted in unprecedented scalability and simplify network design and management. NSX also helped us with the consolidation of four disparate physical networks within the data center. These networks we manage as a single logical network. We have a new data center architecture developed that appeals to the scalability of Layer 3 data center network and the capabilities of NXS for virtualizing overlay networks.
No more cumbersome process
The virtual network will enable Colt to quickly put together a complete range of services for business customers. Web services, storage and backups can be in the data center connected to a network management and WAN connectivity. In this particular case five network capabilities are coupled to one another. In the past, this was accompanied by a cumbersome process. Technicians had to go into the data center and connecting physical cables between ports. Then they had to configure all systems
Voltini:. “The VMware system does this automatically. Which brings us one step closer to the status of a truly software-defined enterprise. Down the line, we can reduce costs by 60 to 70 percent compared to the original situation.
This article first appeared in Computable magazine volume 48, number 5 of May 2015.
• Watch for when considering software defined networking to a quick win, for example in the form of a vCPE (virtual customer premises equipment) .
• Cloud providers and over-the-Top ‘players take the lead, keep an eye on them in order to learn from it.
• Avoid vendor lock-in. Software defined networking has to go a long way in determining the ideal architecture and the availability of industry standards.
• Overlay sdn solutions for the data center reality, they put so well in.
• Software defined networking is not purely technology driven, it affects the entire organization. Prepare for here
• Think from services and applications
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