colt’s journey towards a software-defined data centre

© 2014 Colt Technology Services Group Limited. All rights reserved.

Colt’s journey towards a software-defined data centre

Nicolas Fischbach

Strategy, Architecture & Innovation Director

2

2

Agenda

Building your own software-defined DC

Network virtualisation & next-generation fabric

Storage and backup

What’s next ?

Looking back: 20 years of DC evolution

Introduction

Compute hardware, CRM & hypervisor

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3

Colt – The Information Delivery Platform

• 46,000km EU Fibre

network / 37,000

transatlantic

• 23 countries / 41

metros / 192 connected

cities

• 20 Colt owned data

centres / 19,800

connected buildings

• 500+ NNIs / customers

in 79 countries

• MEF / ONF / NFV

Member

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4

Agenda



Storage and backup

What’s next ?

Looking back: 20 years of DC evolution

Introduction


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Looking back: 20 years of DC

• Network architecture: from campus architectures to leaf/spine and SDN

• Compute hardware: from dedicated HW to virtualized environments

• Storage (and Backup): from direct attached to SAN and SSD innovation

• Technical infrastructure

• Power: from <1 to 3.5kW+ per rack

• Cooling: airflow models, alternative cooling

• Structured cabling: copper is dead, all fibre ?

• Product & service offerings: from colo to managed IT solutions

• Operating models: from manual physical setup and in-life changes to spin-up within minutes and scale-out/in

• Next: Open Compute ?

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6

Agenda



Storage and backup

What’s next ?


Introduction


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7

L2/L3 Packet Network

Colt Data Centre

VM VM

DC

Spine

DC

Leaf

L2/L3

PE

Cloud Compute

Storage Physical

Compute

VS

VS

VS

VS

VS

VS

SDN

Controller

Overlay

Gateway

Colt WAN Network

DC SDN Virtual Network

Orchestration

L2/L3

PE

DC

(GW)

Leaf

L1 Optical Network

Colt IDP: Integration of network & compute

Internet

Other

clouds

SDDC ?

Network Virtualisation (L2-L4)

Network Functions Virtualisation (L3-L7)

Next-Generation Storage & Compute

Next-Generation Data Centre Fabric

Integrated Ethernet/IP Platform

Cloud Resource Manager

Cloud Connect, etc.

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8

Agenda



Storage and backup

What’s the future looking like ?


Introduction


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9

Cloud Centric Networking (CCN) project

Current DC network challenges

• Logical Scale (VLANs, Tenant Networks)

• Stranded Capacity (Link waste, STP)

• Flexibility, Elasticity (complex dynamic connectivity)

• Port Density – limited 10Gbe

• Automation complexity

• TCO

Scalability (physical / logical)

Efficient resource utilisation

APIs

Gateway functionality Fabric integration

QoS

Multi tenancy

WAN integration

CMS/CRM integration

Redundancy

Security

Energy efficiency Open architecture

Etc.

Elasticity

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10

Colt DC – Gen 3 vs Gen 4 architecture

Gen 3

IP Core

(Internet)

L3 PE

(IP VPN)

L2 PE

(L2 VPN) WAN

Access

(traditional

Ethernet)

Customer

Services

VLAN

Cust 1 Cust 2

Cust 2 Cust 3

Cloud Platform

Backup Management

Gen 4

IP Core

(Internet)

L3 PE

(IP VPN)

L2 PE

(L2 VPN)

WAN

Modular

MSP

Cust 3

Cloud Platform

Cust 2

Cust 1 Cust 2

SDN

Overlay

Leaf (+ Overlay

Gateway)

Spine

Leaf

Backup

Management

VXLAN

VLAN

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11

NSX SDN Controller

End-to-end automation

Customer L2/L3 Packet

DWDM Optical

DC Fabric

INTERNET

L2 VM

VM

Colt Orchestrator (Automatic Provisioning Tool)

Virtual L3

CPE

Cloudstack vCD CMS

Colt Data Centre

REST REST

Colt Node

Other NMS (IP addressing, monitoring, reporting, etc)

Colt Portal

CLI and vendor specific interfaces

Cyan Blueplanet

(multivendor)

Colt Order

Mgmt System Colt Service

Delivery

Customer

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12

Agenda



Storage and backup

What’s next


Introduction


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13

Compute HW, CRM, hypervisors and portals

• Web 2.0 companies vs Service Providers

• Compute hardware: which approach (e.g. blade server + fabric) ?

• Cloud Resource Managers

• Which one to pick ? How deeply interconnected is it with the external service offering ?

• How many make sense ?

• Hypervisors

• As above...

• Portals

• Customer experience (global or per go-to-market) ?

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14

Agenda



Storage and backup

What’s next


Introduction


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Storage Evolution

Physical

Compute PS

IO I/O 1:1 ratio

DAS Storage

Application

Operating System

Direct Attached Storage

Physical

Compute PS

IO I/O 1:1 ratio

Storage

SAN / Eth

Application

Operating System

PS

Application

Operating System

IO

IO IO I/O switched

Storage Area Network /

Network Attached Storage

Cloud

Compute HV

IO IO

IO

IO

Virtual

Machines

IO Funnel

(Bottleneck) 1 : N

Storage

SAN

VM VM VM VM

VM VM VM VM

Virtualisation

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Next: Software-defined Storage

Control path (API)

Virtual Storage pools

Data path

Snap /

Replication QoS Perf. SLA

Orchestration

Services

HV

DC Fabric

PS

NFS iSCSI

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What’s the best approach ?

All-Flash Arrays

Hybrid Arrays

In-Memory Storage

Hyper-Conv. Storage

Platforms

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Agenda



Storage and backup

What’s next


Introduction


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What’s next ?

• Closer linkage between the technical infrastructure and the cloud platforms

• Platform economics

• Start of a consolidation cycle ?

• Evolution of the operating model

• Where does devops work ?

• How much innovation can one absord each year ?

colt’s journey towards a software-defined data centre

Technology

generation fabric storage

crm

backup whats

back

20 years

software