What is Data Network, in simple steps?
Beautiful Data Networks, connecting People and Devices | Article
On our portal, www.v500.com, we frequently talk about Networks, Networking, and Data Networks. Are all these things fine? What exactly do we mean by that?
Many people are using networks and not paying much attention to it, so why should they? We want to explain what Data Networks do in our lives, in your business.
If you understand what networks do, you will subsequently understand what services we provide and what advantages, benefits, and value we can add to your business infrastructure.
“More than 70% of all data traffic today moves from Server-to-Server or East-to-West traffic. Traditional (legacy) data center networks were initially designed for resiliency and were mainly concerned with speed in and out of the data center, which is now within it. The Cloud technology, where much data is replicated globally, E2W is being used.”
What is a Data Network?
A data network is a system that transfers data between network access points (nodes) through data switchings, system control, and interconnection transmission lines, such as Ethernet (copper) or fibre. Data networks may be composed of various communication systems, including circuit switches, leased lines, and packet-switching networks.
What are the types of Data Networks?
- Personal Area Network (PAN)
- Local Area Network (LAN)
- Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN)
- Campus Area Network (CAN)
- Metropolitan Area Network (MAN)
- Wide Area Network (WAN)
- Storage-Area Network (SAN)
- System-Area Network (also known as SAN)
What is a Mobile Data Network?
A mobile data network is a network that your standard mobile phone or smartphone operates off. The network is generally transmitted in mobile coverage areas. Unlike a private wireless home or office network, a mobile network is not generally as secure, and care must be taken to access data through it.
The two most common types of Data Networks include:
- Local Area Network (LAN)
- Wide Area Network (WAN)
What are 3x Tier Data Center Networks?
Legacy Data Center networks used a three-tier design consisting of switches in the Core, Distribution (Aggregation), and Access layers.
- Core Switches – are usually large integrated chassis with very high throughput and advanced routing capabilities (BGP and OSPF).
- Distribution (Aggregation) Layer Switches are Mid-Tier speed switches that are important for uplink speeds. Additional services, such as load balancing and firewalls, are often found at this layer.
- Access Layer Switches – are the traditional top-of-rack (TOR) switches that regularly consist of 24 to 48 ports of 1 or 10Gbps ports with similarly sized uplinks.
3x Tier Network Infrastructure – Core, Distribution and Access Layer
A 3x-tier Data Center network design was frequently recommended in the past. It worked very well when the bulk of traffic moved North-South (from outside to the Data Center in) or vice versa. A packet flow to the Core is routed to the correct Distribution switch and then dispatched to the Access Switch where servers are connected; passing through only three physical hops limits the amount of latency added per packet flow.
The concern with this design for the modern Data Center is that much more intra-DC traffic is the new norm. Due to server-to-server traffic, three hops now quickly become four, five, or more, adding notable latency per flow and increasing the possibility of bottlenecks, buffer overruns, and dropped packets.
2x Tier Data Center networks, what is used now
Today, a Two-Tier network with a Spine-and-Leaf architecture is recommended to meet the needs of modern applications: high throughput, low latency, and zero convergence.
- Spine Switches – are very high-throughput, low-latency and port-dense switches with direct high-speed (40, 100, 400 Gbps) connections to every single Leaf Switch.
- Leaf Switches are very comparable to traditional TOR (Top of the Rack) switches. They are often 24 – 48 port 1/10 or 40, 50, and 100Gbps access layer connections but have the increased capacity of 40, 100 or 400Gbps uplinks to each Spine Switch.
Spine and Leaf Network Infrastructure – SDN, Network Automation
Spine and Leaf Network Infrastructure, Software Defined Networking (SDN), Network Automation
Benefits of Two-Tier, Spine/Leaf architectures
- Resiliency: Each Leaf switch connects to every single Spine switch, spanning trees are not needed, and due to TRILL, SPB, or SDN protocols, every uplink can be used simultaneously. Traffic flows through all 100% of uplinks, and the algorithm balances traffic equally. Subsequently, all the switch ports are utilised, not like with 3x-tier infrastructure, where only 50% of ports and uplinks were used, the other 50% on standby.
- Latency: There is only a maximum of 2 hops for any East-West packet flow, so very low latency is typical.
- Performance: True Active/Active uplinks enable traffic to flow over the least congested high-speed links available.
- Scalability: You can expand Leaf Switch quantity to the desired port capacity and add spine switches for uplinks. All VLANs (VXLANs) are available everywhere.
- Adaptability: Multiple spine-leaf networks across a multi-cloud environment can be connected and managed from a single pane of glass. This topology benefits other sections of the Enterprise network (for example, industrial cell architecture or corporate LAN).
- Convergence: there is zero-convergence; in Mega Data Center networks require high performance if network traffic is converged, the performance of servers and storage devices will be effected greatly
Considerations for using Two-Tier, spine-leaf architectures
With a Two-Tier design, the Data Center will need to be re-cabled. Each Leaf must be connected to every Spine. This new architecture requires a considerable amount of cable and optics for connectivity. Correct, some work is needed regarding cabling; however, with TOR switches, you save money on cabling, harnessing, and patch panels.
Two-tier, Spine/Leaf architectures may still require some routers for layer three routing to the Internet, Campuses, and Branches. Planning for both the physical and logical network is essential before purchasing the new Data Center hardware.
Cloud Network Infrastructure approach
Perhaps we are stating the obvious: A Cloud Network or platform is an environment hosted in someone else’s Data Center. In other words, treat the Cloud like your own network. Segregate applications, services, and servers into manageable networks. Apply strict firewall policies between networks/subnets.
AWS VPC, by default, will give you 65k plus IP addresses; none need that many unless you are an FTSE 100 Enterprise business. The magic is to split this into relevant availability zones for resiliency and then into subnets—./24 (250 plus IPs). Many people forget the fundamental step to having a good naming convention and exercise it very often; please look at our post, 10 Top Network Design Best Practices for your Infrastructure.
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Explore our Case Studies and other engaging Blog Posts:
10 Top Network Design Best Practices for Your Infrastructure
What makes an outstanding Data Network Design?
Maksymilian Czarnecki
The Blog Post, originally penned in English, underwent a magical metamorphosis into Arabic, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hindi, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish language. If any subtle content lost its sparkle, let’s summon back the original English spark.
