21Vianet Group

Huawei and 21Vianet Collaborate to Launch China’s Largest Commercial SDN Network – Sep 10, 2014– Beijing, China (Techreleased) – Huawei, today announced a partnership with 21Vianet Group Inc. (21Vianet), the largest carrier-neutral Internet Data Center (IDC) services provider in China, to launch China’s largest commercial Software-Defined Networking-enabled (SDN) network. The network will provide flexibility to subscriber networks that manage and support cloud services. It will enable enterprises to adjust their business strategies to stay competitive in a dynamic market environment.

21Vianet Group

As part of the collaboration, the companies worked on joint innovation initiatives in SDN and 21Vianet deployed Huawei’s Cloud Fabric Data Center Network Solution that mainly uses the CE12800 series data center switches and Agile Controller. The overall efficiency of 21Vianet’s cloud computing data centers will be enhanced significantly as a result. The one-click service deployment function of Huawei’s solution increases the speed of 21Vianet’s cloud service provision tenfold. Huawei’s Open Programmability System shortens 21Vianet’s new service innovation period from six months to only one month. In addition, the solution’s automatic path adjustment and optimization function increased the efficiency of link bandwidth utilization from 50 percent to 80 percent.

“21Vianet’s goal is to become one of the most respected Chinese companies in the Internet infrastructure sector and provide high-quality services via open and innovative next-generation network infrastructure. 21Vianet’s SDN-enabled network is an example of the successful commercial application of an SDN network in China,” said Mike Ma, Vice President, 21Vianet. “We are pleased to be partnering with Huawei to explore the use of SDN technology for data centers and the commercialization of solutions developed by our joint innovation initiatives. We hope that these innovations will improve the efficiency of network operations, facilitate fast service delivery and service launch, enhance user experience, and create more value for our customers.”

“Huawei has worked closely with 21Vianet in cloud computing data centers. The successful deployment of China’s largest commercial SDN network that effectively supports 21Vianet’s growth strategy marks a significant industry milestone,” said Yu Li, General Manager, Data Center Network Domain, Switch & Enterprise Communications Product Line, Huawei.” As a leading global ICT solutions provider, Huawei is open to collaboration with customers to promote openness and innovation, and to develop competitive end-to-end solutions in various fields including networking and cloud computing. The openness of Huawei’s Cloud Fabric Data Center Network Solution makes it possible for enterprises to easily embrace SDN, accelerate the speed to market for new services, facilitate rapid development, and enable business success in the age of agility.”

To cope with its rapidly growing business with more customers and higher levels of data volume, 21Vianet has been exploring ways to improve the utilization efficiency of network links to provide reliable, consistent and high-quality network services. Fast service provisioning is crucial for the company as most of its customers are Internet Service Providers (ISPs) that need to stay ahead in an extremely competitive industry. Therefore, 21Vianet had an urgent need for a more flexible, new-generation data center network system capable of faster service innovation and provisioning. In an effort to address these challenges, 21Vianet established a strategic partnership with Huawei to develop an innovative SDN-enabled solution – an Agile Traffic Engineering (TE) solution. The Agile TE solution is based on Huawei’s Cloud Fabric Data Center Network Solution which enables flexible Data Center Interconnect (DCI) and network traffic optimization for fast service provisioning. The company has deployed Huawei’s Cloud Fabric Data Center Network Solution (including the CE12800 series data center switches and Agile Controller) at eight large-scale data centers in China located in major cities like Beijing, Guangzhou, Nanjing and Wuhan. These data centers support the company’s services throughout China and combine to be the country’s largest commercial SDN data center network. In the next phase, 21Vianet will expand the deployment of the SDN-enabled solution to more than 80 large-scale data centers in over 40 cities.