Simplified data centre interconnect (DCI) is key to Baidu’s Web-scale operations
The world's biggest Chinese search engine and website provider, Baidu, often deals with Web-scale requirements, such as billions of searches from more than 100 countries and regions. Its mobile app, Baidu Mobile, has more than 1.1 billion active devices.
Nothing, however, was quite like the busiest period on the Chinese calendar -- Chinese New Year's Eve 2019 -- when it was the official platform for sharing "virtual red packets" during the 2019 CCTV Spring Festival Gala, China's annual variety show that captures the largest audience of any entertainment show in the world.
More than 300 million daily active users were logged in that day, while the number of transactions worldwide reached 20.8 billion, with a peak request rate per second of 50 million and a peak request rate per minute of 1 billion -- a record.
How Baidu handled the surge of data traffic at its data centres was through a well-planned and carefully built DCI network that linked up its various data centres. It was fast, intelligent, and simplified, unlike many DCI offerings today.
Challenges at the data centre
Like many Web-scale service providers, Baidu faces a number of challenges typical to data centre networks. Heat dissipation, power supply, plus device form factor of existing modular optical transmission devices often do not match what is possible in a data centre equipment room. This means it has to be rebuilt to match the new equipment.
At the same time, traditional optical transmission devices require complex optical-layer fibre connections and configurations. This is usually handled by highly skilled and experienced operations and maintenance (O&M) personnel, instead of regular IT staff.
The process to deploy and commission traditional optical transmission devices also often takes at least half a month, which is too long for cloud services that have to be rolled out quickly.
Moreover, software interfaces are not unified, making it difficult for tasks to be automated. Often, the same function needs to be adapted to proprietary interfaces of different vendors. As a result, the software-defined network (SDN) platform cannot be used to control devices. It cannot deliver automatic and intelligent O&M.
Finding a simpler way forward
What Baidu did was partner with Huawei to address these issues. The aim was to lower the per-bit cost, simplify O&M, and enable fast site deployment for Internet and enterprise customers. Fast network construction and intelligent O&M should be performed by IT personnel, with no need for specialist optical transmission O&M capabilities.
One of the first things on the drawing board was to make the DCI transmission devices compatible with existing data centre equipment room standards. So, the new devices support 220V AC or 240V DC power supply, could adopt the front-to-rear airflow design, support optical-electrical integration to improve integration, and support 120 wavelengths by utilising the Super C band.
In addition, as the programmable capacity exceeds 48Tbps, this reduced the optical fiber resources and per-bit cost required while improving data transmission speed.
At the same time, the 200G e16QAM coding technology deployed doubles the maximum transmission capability, saving electrical regeneration resources and ultimately cutting costs.
Simplicity is thus brought to the O&M process, making it more proactive than before. Thanks to Huawei's innovation in product architectures, DCI networks on Baidu can now be deployed with one-click automation, resulting in commissioning times being cut from days to minutes.
As a result, there is no need to carry out a site survey. Fibre connections have been reduced and incorrect connections cut down. All these features are now available in Huawei OptiXtrans DC908 DCI product today as well.
Like Baidu, it will empower Web-scale enterprises. The solution is simple to deploy, with rollout being as fast as in 8 minutes as there are no fibre connections at the optical layer.
Huawei OptiXtrans DC908 also offers ultra-broadband capacities of 48Tbps and beyond. Plus, intelligent chips and algorithms enable simpler O&M while lowering fibre faults.
Key to these improvements is Huawei's proprietary innovations. These include a sub-health diagnosis that is based on an algorithm like a neural network that uses linear fitting and time sequence prediction. This means the health of optical-layer fibers and optical channels is easily predicted, so proactive measures can be taken.
For more information on Huawei's network solutions, read on here.