VIRTUALISATION I STORAGE
Juniper estimates that the QFabric architecture is up to ten times faster, uses 77% less power, requires 27% fewer networking devices, occupies 90% less data centre space and delivers a nine-fold reduction in operating resources compared to its nearest rival.
complexity of managing the huge number of devices and multiple tiers in traditional networks.
Single logical switch Juniper Networks has a long history of focusing on innovations that tackle some of the industry’s biggest challenges. With Project Stratus, a $100 million research and development initiative started in 2007, Juniper has developed QFabric, a major new technology that addresses the constraints of traditional networks. QFabric technology enables organisations to create a single logical switch that connects the entire data centre – up to 6,000 servers – eliminating tiers of multiple access aggregation and core switches and reducing the number of devices needed, which also reduces the demand for space and power. By allowing multiple devices to act as one, QFabric provides the scale and resiliency of a network and the performance and simplicity of a single switch. With QFabric, Juniper Networks has deconstructed a traditional switch into three component parts – a node that supplies high-density ingress and egress ports, an interconnect chassis, which is a high speed transport device, and a management platform that gives a single view of the fabric.
Any-to-any connection As a result, QFabric provides any-to-any connection across the entire data centre. Each port is directly connected to every other port and managed from a single point, giving administrators unprecedented control.
The node acts as the distributed decision engine of the fabric, making layer 2 and 3 forwarding decisions. Because nodes are logically-connected peers, there is no need for aggregating ports with banks of switches.
An incoming packet is processed at the point of entry and sent directly to its final destination, without having to be reprocessed at every layer of a hierarchical infrastructure. Regardless of where data needs to go, it’s always one hop away, including fibre channel storage.
The key to simplicity QFabric enables cloud computing to become a reality by providing two key capabilities. First, it provides the ability to
treat data centre computing, storage, services, and network resources as fully interchangeable pools that can be dynamically and rapidly partitioned without the infrastructure or the applications knowing details about each other.
This is the key to simplicity, efficiency and security in the data centre. It is also particularly important for multi-tenant data centres, where it is completely impractical to assume that the infrastructure knows details about the application or that applications know about details of the infrastructure.
Second, QFabric allows resources to be connected to each other at very high speeds, with apparently no limitations to the interconnect, except fixed interface bandwidth and a small transit latency. This is the key to high performance, as well as further efficiency improvements.
According to Andre Kindness at
Forrester.com, “QFabric’s strongest differentiation is the single management plane that makes all the components behave as one switch without introducing a single failure point. Juniper Network’s® QFabric drives simplicity into the data center, a value long overdue.”1
Quantum leaps in performance By eliminating multiple layers of cost and complexity, Juniper is delivering quantum leaps in data centre network performance. Juniper estimates that the QFabric architecture is up to ten times faster, uses 77 percent less power, requires 27 percent fewer networking devices, occupies 90 percent less data centre space and delivers a nine-fold reduction in operating resources compared to its nearest rival.
QFabric allows organisations to improve application performance, with packets flying across the entire data centre in under 5 microseconds at maximum cable length. Businesses also gain increased business agility. Being able to scale without adding complexity allows organizations to respond rapidly to changing business demands.
In addition, economics are improved – fewer devices use less power and space. With less to buy, operate and update, costs are cut dramatically and, as it all runs on a single operating system – JUNOS®- it is much simpler to operate and manage.
Endnotes 1. Taken from
http://blogs.forrester.com/andre_kindness/11-02-23-junipers_qfabric_the_dark_horse_in_the_datacenter_fabric_race
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