The Data Center of the Future Ramps Up To Full Throttle with 10 Gigabit Ethernet

Today, what IDC calls the “Data Center of the Future,” is ramping up to full throttle with 10 Gigabit Ethernet, the unifying network standard. Data centers equipped with 10 Gigabit Ethernet can enjoy a range of compelling benefits including investment protection, product flexibility, performance, and energy efficiency backed by a deep, multi-vendor ecosystem to deliver 10Gb NICs, interconnects, blade and rack-level switches, as well as conventional fixed and chassis-based switches. What’s more, one of the issues that until now has impeded the adoption of 10Gb was price, which is now becoming less of an issue as per port prices have declined below $500 per port, the price point at which the volume economics of Ethernet are expected to accelerate the move to 10Gb NICs, edge and aggregation switches.

BLADE and IDC recently teamed up with HP and IBM to air two webinars: “10G Ethernet: Overcoming Network Overload with Rackonomics—An Innovative Approach to Scaling Out Data Center Networks” and “10G Ethernet: The Future of Scalable Networks for Blade Server Virtualization." These webinars offer insights into factors that are introducing new loads and requirements for low latency to the network. For example, IDC’s Cindy Borovick explains the impact on the network from “Dynamic Datacenters” that are equipped to manage workloads based on business priorities, provide virtual I/O and virtual network services and deliver SOA-based applications.

Cindy’s “Essential Guidance” is fivefold:
1. The “Datacenter of the Future“ will require performance, availability and scale.
2. Virtualization changes network requirements.
3. Asset consolidation drives the need for high bandwidth and low latency.
4. Ethernet is on a path to be the unifying network standard in the datacenter.
5. 10 Gigabit Ethernet will be the foundation of the future datacenter network.

If you’re like me, you’ll come away from these webinars as time well spent with some fresh insights into why 10 Gigabit Ethernet is the best choice for the dynamic and highly virtualized “Data Centers of the Future.”

Once again Ethernet is the de facto mainstream network topology with 10 Gigabit Ethernet today’s best choice for massive scale-out enterprise networks, emerging converged networking/storage networks and virtually everywhere and anywhere a server or bank of servers requires high bandwidth, low latency, advanced energy efficiency and the affordability of Ethernet’s volume economics. Even High Performance Computing (HPC) clusters, which have been the domain of Infiniband and other proprietary server I/O interconnects, show growing use of Ethernet – see the TOP500 List of the world’s most powerful supercomputers.

The technology blogosphere is paying attention to the coming widespread migration to 10 Gigabit Ethernet as the mainstream standard. I encourage you to visit Stephen Brown’s informative blog about all things 10GbE.


Also, it’s worthwhile to read what Chris Mellor for Blocks and Files in the U.K has to say in his view about BLADE’s groundbreaking solutions for implementing the lossless 10Gb Ethernet required for converged Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) storage networks. “No need to wait,” writes Mellor, because BLADE can implement a loss-less, low-latency FC0E network now.”

At BLADE, our embedded 1Gb/10Gb Ethernet switches and new 10Gb top-of-rack data center-class RackSwitch are the flagships of our product line and the mainstays of our Rackonomics concept for provisioning massive-scale out networks at the rack level. BLADE 10Gb switches are being deployed across our customer base in more than two dozen market segments, including finance, automotive, defense, and academia to name a few.

For example, a leading academic computer center one of the largest supercomputing and networking centers in Eastern Europe, recently installed BLADE’s 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches an HPC solution using IBM BladeCenter. After evaluating other vendors and fabrics such as Infiniband and Myrinet, the computer center chose BLADE’s 10GB solution primarily because Ethernet is a well-known technology that is easier and more affordable to deploy, configure, install and manage. Using 10Gb Ethernet interconnects within the IBM BladeCenter chassis also delivers significant price-performance advantages along with high bandwidth and low latency. You can download BLADE’s Solution Brief about 10 Gigabit Ethernet High Performance Computing Clusters on IBM BladeCenter at

Just as 10 Gigabit Ethernet is now growing through widespread deployment in the data center, the discussion has not shifted to consider tomorrow’s even higher-speed interconnects – namely 40Gb and 100Gb Ethernet. Coming in September 2008 to a Web browser near you, I will be appearing on NetEvents.tv to speak about the future of Ethernet – specifically “100Gb Ethernet - why, how and when?” Stay tuned to NetEvents.tv’s Telco Channel. For now, hold on to your hats because 10 Gigabit Ethernet is ready to help your dynamic data center ramp up to full throttle.

Advanced Energy Efficiency – Networking Gear Goes Green without a Penalty

A significant sea change of awareness is underway around how networking impacts the energy efficiency of blade servers, containers and other rack-level infrastructures. The recent Blade.org Technology Symposium in New York highlighted Advanced Energy Efficiency as one of the Mega Trends that will characterize the data center of the future. (Converged Networking and Hyper Consolidation are the other two Mega Trends.)

The tide that’s rising is the increasing concern for the role that networking places in the overall energy efficiency of the datacenter environment. And with at least 10% of all data center real estate and power and cooling systems devoted to networking, it’s a relevant, bottom-line concern.

IDC analyst Cindy Borovick commented recently, “How networking fits into the overall data center environment changes the rules. The fact that vendors of data networking gear were not concerned with overall energy efficiency until now is notable.”

Look for IDC and other industry heavyweights to help educate the marketplace about this issue. However, even with the rise of notable groups such as The Green Grid consortium, and Climate Savers Computing Initiative, both of which BLADE recently joined, metrics and specification that rank the energy of networking are in their infancy. For example, as yet, there are no Energy Star ratings for blade servers, networking gear, or rack-level infrastructure – so far, Energy Star standards will only apply to 1U and 2U servers.

Heather Clancy writes in ZDnet’s always-insightful GreenTech Pastures, “So, should your company get all cynical about the green tech movement. I really don’t think so. But the arc of the economic downturn is going to accelerate the downward price pressure that someone might be able to charge as a green tech specialist. Better, instead, to focus on how to differentiate your value proposition with the green tech message WITHOUT looking like a luxury item.”
Link to: http://blogs.zdnet.com/green/?p=1163

BLADE agrees that companies should not have to pay a penalty to go green and run their data centers more efficiently. In fact, on July 1, BLADE Network Technologies will introduce the first hybrid 1G/10G Ethernet “green blade” switch for IBM BladeCenter. The new BLADE switch provides 50 percent greater bandwidth and up to 50 percent better energy efficiency and, priced at $4,999, is up to 50 percent less expensive than comparable Cisco blade switches.

But, today, there are still no standards for the energy efficiency of networking gear. That needs to change, and BLADE intends to champion and lead that charge.

The Rackonomic Data Center: It’s all about Racks, Rows and even Containers

The data center of the future will comprise replicated racks, rows and even containers with massive processing, I/O and storage capabilities.

We’ve coined the term Rackonomics to describe this datacenter of the future that comprises replicated racks of servers, storage and network elements, organized into rows and even containers.

Rackonomics can drastically reduce facilities and support costs and drive down total cost of ownership. It can also improve energy efficiency through high-density packaging and unique cooling designs that do not require the construction of a brand new data center facility. It is the way of the future.

Google pioneered the container data center concept with the intent to distribute Google data centers to every network peering point in self-contained shipping containers. Today, massive scale-out containers can house thousands of processors, tens of petabytes of disk storage, and hundreds of Gigabits of I/O, and can be dropped-off overnight by a tractor-trailer rig. Google’s idea is to place one of these containers anywhere Google owns access to fiber, primarily at one of the 300 major Internet peering points, in effect transforming the Internet into a massive processing and storage grid.

At BLADE, we are designing and building the top-of-rack and blade-based data center-class networking products that make the ideal, standardized networking components for the rack, row, and container-based data center. And we’re partnering with companies like IBM, whose iDataPlex platform is amongst the most innovative solutions for building out the Rackonomic datacenter.

Rackonomic data centers have tremendous potential, for example, enabling Internet TV to scale to the same level as broadcast and cable TV with latency and system response as low as they can possibly be made for a networked application using Ethernet as its essential network backbone. We’re proud to be playing a leading role in an industry-wide effort to redefine how enterprises build out their datacenters.

Making Green a Reality

This morning, I awoke to read in the San Jose Mercury News that San Jose has been recognized by the Brookings Institute as the nation’s 7th- greenest city, with sunny Honolulu at number 1 and Lexington, Kentucky at the bottom of the list. I believe, very strongly, that:
- our society’s energy consciousness and environmental awareness need to become a way of life, and
- our business community must work harder to justify the economic value proposition associated with going, doing and being “green”.

At BLADE, we’ve made it part of our daily best practices to be the most environmentally friendly network equipment vendor in the industry. We are proud to have been recognized as the first network equipment vendor named to AlwaysOn’s GoingGreen 100 list of the world’s foremost “green” companies and the pioneering leader of energy-efficient data center networking.

However, we have heard from customers, analysts, partners and technical visionaries throughout the data center world that companies will not actively consider so-called “green” technologies unless they can actually achieve demonstrable savings and realizable efficiencies across factors such as power consumption, cooling requirements, facilities space and costs and data center virtualization and consolidation. Further, we realize that packing ever-more blade servers and rack-mounted servers and storage systems into the least possible space with the tightest energy footprint is creating serious heat, power and cooling issues.

At the crossroads where data center economics and energy efficiency converge, BLADE is capturing the attention of data center managers with a concept becoming known as Rackonomics. To put it simply, this is the idea that a data center should be made up of replicated racks that have standard configurations of servers, storage and network. This matters for ongoing support and total cost of ownership. It also improves energy efficiency.

The twin inspirations of Rackonomics (see my previous post) and the “green” movement have hit the ground running at BLADE. The power profile of our Ethernet blade switch family and new top-of-rack data center-class RackSwitch and their carbon footprints are among the lowest in the industry.

In addition, BLADE products are manufactured in an environmentally responsible ISO 14001 certified manufacturing facility. We are also proud to note that all of the materials used to package this product (with the exception of the anti-static bag) contain post-consumer recycled content and are fully recyclable. Meanwhile, we are working with the industry to find an environmentally friendly substitute for the anti-static bag that will accomplish the same objective without compromising product reliability.

BLADE takes its environmental responsibilities very seriously. We not only design and manufacture “green” products, but we practice “green” policies internally and encourage our employees and customers to do the same. The future of our planet depends on it.

I am gratified that BLADE’s approach to Rackonomics and our “green” leadership is getting noticed. Recently ZDNet’s Heather Clancy observed that, “Simply put, Blade Networks has developed a truly innovative new product in the network virtualization category, one that promises to reduce power consumption through its unique cooling design.”

One thing that made Heather sit up and take notice about BLADE’s approach is something that actually is pretty simple. “One reason that Blade Networks can claim better power consumption metrics than some competitive technologies is that it has designed its technology to cool like a blade server would — with a front to back airflow,” writes Heather. “Many other switches are configured the opposite of blades, which means they would create a hot loop within the rack. Not ideal.”

Well, at BLADE, we are actually idealists when it comes to the transformative potential of Rackonomics for energy-efficient data centers combined with today’s interest in economically sensible “green” business values. However, the information technology industry’s and society as a whole’s “green” consciousness is in its infancy. As Marilyn Brown, one of the authors of the Brookings’ “green cities” report calls out, "It’s rather astonishing that this type of data has never been pulled together before.”

What the Brookings Institute’s “green cities” report will not track until its 2009 rankings are the emissions from commercial buildings, factories and transportation systems – most every one of which has a data center at the heart of its operations as a significant consumer of increasingly precious energy resources. However, the Brookings’ report does call for national renewable energy standards. We second this recommendation in terms of the increasingly urgent need for energy efficiency standards for data center infrastructure and networking gear and facilities, which contribute significantly to the carbon footprint of today’s businesses.

At a time when such data center standards are not yet clearly identified, understood or adopted – particularly when it comes to networking equipment – BLADE is committed to leading the charge towards recognized industry best practices for energy efficiency and economically-sound environmental value as realized through Rackonomics.

Our entire team at BLADE welcomes your input about how we can make our products and services even more responsive to your concerns about power consumption, energy efficiency and the environmental impact of today’s and tomorrow’s data centers. If you would like to reach BLADE’s Chief Green Officer André Luthard with any ideas, recommendations or guidance, please click on this link to send him an email.

RackonomicsHolistic Rules for the New Data Center

As we have been briefing various customers and industry analysts in conjunction with the recent launch of our new top-of-rack data center-class RackSwitch, it has become clear to me that there is a tremendous amount of confusion in the marketplace. This confusion seems to stem from the relative absence of holistic best practices surrounding how data centers can harness the tremendous benefits of serve/storage consolidation and virtualization without inadvertently driving hidden costs and pitfalls into the networking facilities infrastructure. Power, for example, is a huge issue, when companies
using collocation facilities can't supply their racks with more than a small KwA per rack, so end up deploying racks that are only half or one third full.

This is why I'm so passionate about the potential for "Rackonomics" – a new set of holistic rules for the data center that BLADE is defining and championing. IT departments can leverage Rackonomics to scale out their data center networks affordably and holistically at the rack level. In modern data center architecture, Rackonomics refers to the concept of rack-level provisioning--designing, deploying and replicating server/computer systems, data networks and storage area networks (SANs) rack by rack to:

• decrease the total cost of ownership of data center infrastructures
  
• reduce IT complexity
  
• enable incremental scalability.

One of the primary tenets of Rackonomics is that putting switches into blade enclosures and server/storage racks is far more economical than using external core switches. Our customers have told us that a "put it in the rack" strategy can enable them to save tens of thousands of dollars in switch hardware, deployment and energy costs for every external switch that they can avoid deploying. And, the network switch has the ability to viritualize the network connections associated with the server/storage elements located in the rack, thus vastly simplifying the datacenter network.

What's more, every time an IT manager can make a rack-level deployment decision, they can fully understand the holistic impact of that rack on other elements of their data center infrastructure. Through Rackonomics and its rack-level approach, as requirements to grow and scale out emerge, an IT manager can understand exactly the impact of what's being added in terms of compute capacity, latency and power and cooling - without over-provisioning the expensive core network, SANs, and power and cooling capabilities to keep pace.

The fundamental concept of Rackonomics is straightforward. By linking servers/storage into localized switches that reside inside blade and/or rack enclosures, IT buyers can save money by dramatically reducing acquisition costs and eliminate network complexity by virtualizing network resources at a rack level. Operational costs can also be reduced because IT administrators are managing fewer entities (racks instead of individual elements in a rack). Furthermore, cabling costs are reduced often by as much as 80%) and cooling requirements for network equipment can be cut in half because fewer power and space hungry core switches are required.

However, as the saying goes, "the proof is in the pudding." One of the biggest benefits of Rackonomics comes from the real-world understanding of how all the elements of the rack work together in a holistic way before making the big decision to scale out using a specific rack full of components. Rackonomics offers a new set of customer-driven rules of the data center. But, how can vendors and their customers play together by those rules?

At BLADE, we're committed to overcoming confusion about how best to implement server/storage consolidation and virtualization by helping to establish shared understandings between the vendor and user communities around holistic data center best practices. Our recent demonstration in Orlando, Florida at Storage Networking World of Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) with Emulex and NetApp is one such holistic example. FCoE, with its ability to converge data and storage networks, is heralded as the wave of the future, but only to the extent that vendors can communicate its viability and value and the end-user community can understand how to make it work in the real world. That is Rackonomics at work.

One final thought for the busy IT manager grappling with a myriad of issues….think of your datacenter as a collection of racks vs. individual server, storage and networking elements. Make a rack as the smallest unit of deployment in your environment and then replicate that rack. This will make deployment, management and scaling much simpler.

Resource Links:

• Virtualizing the Network Facilities (Interop 2008 Podcast I did with InfoWorld)
  
• ZDNet Blog entry on BLADE and Rackonomics from a conversation with BLADE VP of Strategy and Product Management, Dan Tuchler

Green Networking

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to speak at a conference in Orlando to an audience of over 100 Gartner clients and IT managers about how you can lower datacenter energy costs with blade networking.

I was taken aback by the power of our message!! Truly, I managed to shock myself!!

And no, our message was not about our switches having 2x the performance at 1/2 the cost of Cisco (though that is still true).

Our message was even more controversial - "you are polluting the environment by using energy inefficient Cisco gear - that puts out carbon dioxide, monoxides, and creates acid rain, global warming, melts the polar ice caps and kills the penguins!! Is this what you want to leave back for your children and grand children?"

The message resonates.

And the reason we can blow our own horn here is the fact that our BLADE switches not only make it possible for you to consolidate your datacenter into a more efficient use of space and equipment--but they also consume between 25 watts and 65 watts compared with external switches that typically begin consumption at 300 watts. Multiply that out by the number of Ethernet connections a business needs to purchase and provide power and cooling for and the cost savings and environmental benefits are tremendous.

What does this really mean? If a 100 watt light bulb, powered from a coal-fired power plant runs continuously for one year, it consumes:

• 876 kWh


• 714 pounds of coal


• 5 lb of Sulfur Dioxide


• 5.1 pounds of Nitrogen Oxides


• 1852 pounds of Carbon Dioxide

I had people come up and tell me they are going to go back and examine their network architecture decisions - truly.

In September BLADE Network Technologies was recognized as the first IT networking vendor to win the GoingGreen 100 award.

Today, my article, "A Holistic Solution to the IT Energy Crisis" was featured in GreenerComputing.com. Please have a read and let me know what you think.

-Vikram

Blade Server Adoption Accelerating, Fueled by Convergence of Virtualization, Consolidation & 10 Gig

My good friend Jeffrey Birnbaum may live on the east coast, and I on the west coast, but on many things it's like we're both sitting in the same room. Especially when it comes to where we think the server market is going.

The other day he told me that he's convinced blade servers will garner the lion's share of new server deployments once IT managers realize the tremendous benefits they bring to the datacenter.

In fact, he said, blade servers do a better job at desktop and server virtualization, and deliver better TCO than standalone servers.

When you combine blades with newer technologies such as 10 Gigabit Ethernet, which has reached the critical $500 per port price point on blades well ahead of conventional chassis-based switches, blades now make economic sense for even applications that need the most throughput and bandwidth, combined with the lowest latency.

I couldn't agree more. So I wrote an article about this for the Data Center Journal.

As a matter of fact, it was the brilliant engineers here at BLADE who gave the blade server industry its first taste of the power of 10 Gigabit Ethernet way back in June 2006, and we haven't slowed down since.

Here is our current list of 10G offerings for blade server systems:

• Nortel 10Gb Ethernet Switch Module for IBM BladeCenter



• Nortel 10Gb Uplink Ethernet Switch Module for IBM BladeCenter



• HP 10Gb Ethernet BL-c Switch for HP BladeSystem c-Class



• HP 1:10Gb Ethernet BL-c Switch for HP BladeSystem



• BNT’s 10Gb XFP modules