The “second half of the chessboard” parable is a becoming metaphor for the trade to which I’ve devoted my profession. If you happen to’re unfamiliar with the parable, right here’s the gist of it: The sport of chess was launched to a king. The king was so delighted, he provided the inventor any reward she desired. The inventor requested for a single grain of rice to be positioned on the primary sq. of the chessboard and to double the quantity of rice every week, for every sq. on the chessboard. The king foolishly agreed, and by the point they crossed the primary half of the chessboard, the dominion was depleted of rice. If they’d reached the final sq., the rice would have amounted to the dimensions of Mount Everest!
Why does this matter to networking and why share this now? After over thirty years of exponential site visitors progress, networks at the moment are crossing the second half of the chessboard. Vigorous progress continues without end, and the dimensions and scale of the most important networks at present dwarf these from simply 5 years in the past.
Consequently, new (and greater) issues have emerged. For instance, how can networks develop to colossal sizes and concurrently improve agility? How can the economics of networking be redefined to decrease the price of possession? Immediately, for each greenback spent on networking gear, operators are spending 5 {dollars} or extra yearly, on operational prices. Energy effectivity, local weather affect, and greenhouse gasoline emissions have risen to the highest. And projections present, that by 2025, the Web might eat 20% of the world’s energy. If it was its personal nation, the Web could be the fifth-largest power client on the earth.
The chess-enamored king was short-sighted. Know-how leaders should constantly anticipate future issues and decide to improvements years prematurely. Cisco Silicon One is a kind of improvements. Designed particularly to deal with the challenges that emerge within the second half of the chessboard, Cisco Silicon One is the engine for our Cisco 8000 collection routers. These platforms are already over twice as dense (12.8Tbps per NPU with 19.2Tbps forthcoming in platforms quickly) and over 3 times extra power-efficient (2.25 Watts/100G) than another system out there at present.
But, being king of the mountain over the remainder of the trade isn’t essentially the most thrilling half. We’re most excited in regards to the velocity and acceleration that Cisco Silicon One structure allows for the longer term. Traditionally, new silicon has been launched each 3-5 years. Completely different platforms sometimes used completely different silicon relying on dimension, position, and performance. Further time was wanted for the working software program to ultimately present characteristic parity and high quality throughout platforms. Sarcastically, improvements all the time appeared to return with delays. That’s altering.
Within the two years since Cisco Silicon One was launched, now we have launched 11 new gadgets that vary from 3.2Tbps to 25.6Tbps. Clients can simplify operations, pace time to worth, and cut back prices utilizing a single silicon technique that spans community platforms from a 3.2Tbps top-of-rack change (TOR) to a 259.2Tbps modular core router.
And we at the moment are transport these applied sciences in quantity. Already, among the world’s largest, future-ready community operators are embracing the worth. Meta, Microsoft, and Deutsche Telekom are simply among the prospects who’ve publicly shared their enthusiasm.
Lately, one other vendor made some noise a few head-to-head efficiency check with our Cisco 8000 collection router. It was a bit like a soccer match the place the host crew made the foundations, employed the referees, put a Cisco uniform on a model, after which declared themselves victorious. It was significantly cringe-worthy as a result of I imagine most technical decision-makers would simply see by way of the misdirection. Sadly, you’ll be able to’t repair engineering points with advertising and marketing. Clients know straight away when checks are designed to make the seller look good as a substitute of doing the client nicely.
To be sincere, I get a bit of bemused when different distributors concentrate on legacy benchmarks which have little relevance to future deployments. For instance, only a few situations establish 4 million routes is important. When prospects do want it, Cisco has different platforms designed to help ten million routes. And hitting legendary line charges of sustained 64-byte packets throughout a complete system? Everybody already is aware of this by no means occurs in an actual community, as a result of video (giant payloads) is the dominant site visitors. Buying and selling off density or energy effectivity to fulfill some fantasy metrics has adverse implications and ends in actual prices to prospects.
New occasions. New issues. New options. Cisco is constructing the Web for the Future. Verify.
Large scale, energy effectivity, agility, and longevity. Sooner or later, these are the metrics that matter most as a result of they straight affect the economics of networking. Checkmate.
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