Introduction

New application architectures and software deployment models are fundamentally transforming the data center. Server virtualization, cloud computing and XaaS imperatives are altering data center traffic flows, escalating bandwidth and performance demands and introducing new security and service orchestration requirements. Legacy data center networks are simply too complex, costly and rigid to meet the needs of the new on-demand world. Tomorrow's virtualized data center demands more agile, efficient and scalable networking solutions.

HP believes customers should take a long-term view towards data center modernization and pursue strategies that protect and extend existing investments and minimize disruptions. Customers should seek approaches that maintain continuity with existing storage, server and network management practices, and choose standards-based solutions that gracefully evolve to meet emerging scalability and performance needs.

HP offers a flexible, virtualization-optimized data center network architecture that requires far fewer devices, interconnections, layers and discrete appliances. HP Networking solutions streamline network operations and accelerate application and service delivery; reduce space, power, cooling and capital requirements; and protect investments while providing a solid foundation for the future.

This white paper reviews data center trends and describes HP solutions for building cost-effective, advanced data center networks that meet the evolving performance, reliability and agility demands of the 21st century.

Key Business and Technology Drivers for a New Data Center Network Architecture

Large-scale Data Center Consolidation

For many enterprise customers, the Data Center IS the business. With mission-critical applications and services deployed to provide the foundation for day-to-day operations and delivery of end-customer services, the data center must deliver unquestioned availability and meet stringent service level agreements. Exploiting server virtualization and low-cost computing power, customers are deploying more and more sophisticated applications on a larger scale. To reduce the sheer complexity and improve operations of these deployments, customers are seeking to consolidate fragmented, dispersed facilities into fewer, centralized locations.

These new 'mega data centers' are fundamentally challenging how networks must be built. Today's networks must be designed to deliver much higher levels of performance, scalability, and availability than before to meet service-level agreements and maintain continuity of operations. Beyond sheer performance, these data center networks must quickly recover from hardware- or software-related faults and protect against server, storage, network, and application vulnerabilities to ensure continued performance and minimize service disruptions.

BladeSystems and Server Virtualization Technologies

The adoption of increasingly powerful multi-core-processor servers, higher-bandwidth interfaces and BladeSystems is dramatically increasing the scale of data center deployments. Now, thousands of virtual machines can be deployed in a single data center to consolidate infrastructure and streamline operations. These large-scale solutions are dramatically increasing network performance requirements at the server edge and across the extended network. Likewise, virtualization and VMotion/Live Migration tools for moving virtual servers are introducing high-volume machine-to-machine traffic flows and impacting existing administrative practices creating a new "virtual edge" that blurs the traditional boundaries between network and server administration.

New Application Deployment and Delivery Models

Traditional client-server software and infrastructure deployment models are being displaced by new application architectures and service delivery models that are reshaping the data center. Web 2.0 mashups, SOA solutions and other federated applications are being widely deployed to deliver integrated, content-correlated, context-specific information and services to end-users within the enterprise and beyond. These deployments drive new, bandwidth-intensive traffic flows within the data center and demand low-latency, high-performance server-to-server and intra-server, virtual machine-to-virtual machine connections. At the same time, cloud computing and XaaS initiatives are introducing more stringent service level and security demands and driving requirements for a more agile and dynamic infrastructure.

HP's Solution: FlexFabric Networks - Wire-Once, Virtual I/O Data Center Network

HP Networking solutions are built from the ground up to meet the demanding needs of tomorrow's highly-virtualized, highly-available, large-scale application environments. HP FlexFabric networks leverage industry standards to deliver high-performance connectivity to storage and server resources using a single network fabric and wire-once simplicity. FlexFabric networks combine a virtualization-optimized network architecture built to deliver high-speed, direct-flight server-to-server connectivity with advanced security and management tools that enable virtualization-aware threat management, and dynamic, virtualization-integrated network provisioning. The solutions are specifically designed to address the unique networking challenges that accompany the deployment of large-scale server virtualization and federated applications. HP FlexFabric networks provide the following:

A simpler, more resilient, more secure data center network that delivers high-performance, low-latency server-to-server connectivity
Agile service delivery to support virtual server migration and on-demand services
Better value and economics with fewer devices and network layers, simplified operations and management, and lower power and cooling costs

Related Courses

Accelerated HP Core/Distribution Layer Network Technologies