Upgrading Network Architecture to 10 Gigabit Ethernet

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Upgrading Data Center Network Architecture

to 10 Gigabit Ethernet

IT@Intel White Paper

Intel IT

IT Best Practices

Data Centers

January 2011

Upgrading our network

architecture will optimize our

data center infrastructure to

respond faster to business

needs while enhancing

the services and value IT

brings to the business.

Intel IT is engaged in a verticalization strategy

that optimizes data center resources to meet

specific business requirements in different

computing areas. Data center trends in three

of these areas drove our decision to upgrade,

including server virtualization and consolidation

in Office and Enterprise computing environ-

ments, and rapid growth in Design computing

applications and their performance requirements.

Additionally, we experience 40 percent per year

growth in our Internet connection requirements.

While designing the new data center fabric, we

tested several 10 GbE connection products and

chose those that offered the highest quality

performance and reliability. We also balanced

ideal design against cost considerations.

The new data center fabric design provides

many benefits:

• Reduced data center complexity. As

virtualization increases, a 10 GbE network

allows us to use fewer physical servers

and switches.

• Reduced total cost of ownership in a

virtualized environment. A 10 GbE fabric

has the potential to reduce network cost

in our virtualized environment by 18 to 25

percent, mostly due to simplifying the LAN

and cable infrastructures. The new system

also requires fewer data center space,

power, and cooling resources.

• Increased throughput. Faster connections

and reduced network latency provide

design engineers with faster workload

completion times and improved productivity.

• Increased agility. The network can easily

adapt to meet changing business needs and

will enable us to meet future requirements,

such as additional storage capacity.

Upgrading our network architecture will optimize

our data center infrastructure to respond faster

to business needs while enhancing the services

and value IT brings to the business.

Matt Ammann

Senior Network Engineer, Intel IT

Carlos Briceno

Senior Network Engineer, Intel IT

Kevin Connell

Senior Network Engineer, Intel IT

Sanjay Rungta

Principal Engineer, Intel IT

Executive Overview

To accommodate the increasing demands that data center growth places on Intel’s

network, Intel IT is converting our data center network architecture to 10 gigabit

Ethernet (GbE) connections. Existing 100 megabit per second (Mb/s) and 1 GbE

connections no longer support Intel’s growing business requirements. Our new

10 GbE data center fabric design will enable us to accommodate current growth

and meet increasing network demand in the future.

Summary of content (5 pages)

PAGE 1
IT@Intel White Paper Intel IT IT Best Practices Data Centers January 2011 Upgrading Data Center Network Architecture to 10 Gigabit Ethernet Executive Overview Upgrading our network architecture will optimize our data center infrastructure to respond faster to business needs while enhancing the services and value IT brings to the business.
PAGE 2
IT@Intel White Paper Upgrading Data Center Network Architecture to 10 Gigabit Ethernet Contents BACKGROUND Executive Overview............................. 1 Intel’s 97 data centers are at the center Background. ........................................... 2 Solution................................................... 2 Simplifying Virtualization for Office and Enterprise Applications . . 3 Increasing Throughput and Reducing Latency for Design Applications........................................
PAGE 3
Upgrading Data Center Network Architecture to 10 Gigabit Ethernet Simplifying Virtualization for Office and Enterprise Applications By converting to a 10 GbE data center Intel’s data center strategy for Office eight to two 10 GbE and one 1GbE. This Table 1.
PAGE 4
IT@Intel White Paper Upgrading Data Center Network Architecture to 10 Gigabit Ethernet Increasing Throughput and Reducing Latency for Design Applications a 10 GbE port by 65 percent by selecting the comprised of multi-strand trunk bundles right architecture and supplier. For example, and cassettes.
PAGE 5
Upgrading Data Center Network Architecture to 10 Gigabit Ethernet low-latency, no-drop needs, such as FC. The advent of 10 GbE is enabling us to converge all our network needs CONCLUSION IT@Intel White Paper ACRONYMS A high-performance 10 GbE data center infrastructure can simplify GbE gigabit Ethernet the virtualization of Office and GB gigabyte Several factors are responsible for increasing Enterprise applications and reduce FC Fibre Channel the I/O demand on our data centers.