< PreviousMark Fieldhouse General Manager, EMEA NS1 In the world of internet infrastructure and data management, the last twenty years have been a whirlwind of change. The evolution of physical hardware and software has had a considerable impact on the development of applications. DDI in the data centre www.networkseuropemagazine.com 40Deploy modern DDI in the data centre to speed up deployment and enhance the customer experience It seems like yesterday that companies owned their own technology which was built for on-premise. Deploying an application took considerable time and manpower because it involved making major infrastructural changes in the data centre. Co-location services removed the burden of hardware ownership, and with the arrival of software-as-a-service and infrastructure-as-a- service, it looked as though IT development would move into the cloud. But that’s not what has happened, and we now have a spectrum of infrastructure in which applications live. Data centres as part of a hybrid configuration Data centres have evolved to play a vital role in the enterprise ecosystem. They are part of the hybrid configuration that many organisations now deploy, working in cooperation with co- location facilities, private and public clouds and serverless architectures. While this enables enterprises to scale and be more agile, it also introduces complexity for the teams who are responsible for maintaining constantly evolving, modern application delivery stacks. What they are looking for is improved orchestration and visibility across the data centre, clouds and the network so they can deliver a seamless experience to customers with no downtime. An often overlooked element in the application traffic stack that could help improve visibility and reduce complexity is DNS, a ubiquitous protocol and the entry point to nearly every networked application. Yet, organisations are too often using outdated DNS, or DDI (a combination of DNS, DHCP and IP Address Management), technology in their data centres and this has held them back. The benefits of modern DDI Modern DDI is fully integrated and allows teams to use the same stack across all user cases from high performance of global traffic to service discovery in data centres, or in highly orchestrated hybrid environments. There are multiple advantages to adoption including: Speeding up application delivery- One of the challenges associated with traditional DDI is that it can lead to slow application rollouts and updates that take hours or even days. For enterprises that are app-driven this has resulted in delays to delivery timelines increasing the risk of falling behind the competition. Today’s DDI solutions are built to support rich, performant RESTful APIs that make interactions easy. They allow DNS changes to propagate in seconds not hours, and don’t require complete restarts that are common with more traditional tools. Streamlining automation and orchestration - Legacy DDI solutions rely on physical hardware that is expensive, limited and cumbersome. If an organisation wants to make changes or upgrades this often requires new physical appliances to be deployed which can delay innovation. This model does not support automation and, in today’s evolved ecosystem, it neither orchestrates nor scales adequately. Modern enterprise DDI, however, is microservices-based and containerised so it can support hyper-automation and orchestration. It can live anywhere, whether that’s the data centre or in the cloud, and allows teams to spin up new architecture on-demand at a speed that suits them. Improving visibility – Without a centralised view of private IP space, teams don’t get a full picture of where services reside within hybrid environments. For example, if the DDI team manages the data centre and cloud DNS using two different products and API endpoints, the likelihood of routing conflicts that cause application outages will dramatically increase. What they get, however, from a modern enterprise DDI solution is unified service discovery with an overview of where applications, services and devices live in the organisation’s environment and on the network. This makes it easier to allocate resources and achieve compliance requirements. The hybrid landscape is complex There is no doubt that the hybrid landscape is complex and unlikely to get simpler. Today’s DDI solutions are designed to integrate with popular infrastructure tools as part of a modern application delivery stack, allowing companies to leverage their technology investments. The keys to success when specifying DDI are straightforward – make sure it improves the speed of application delivery, supports hyper- automation, delivers a centralised view and scales dynamically as part of the company’s application. Organisations should also look for resilience across multiple deployment surfaces, whether that’s the data centre, a public or a private cloud and across multiple geographies, and finally, it should adapt to multiple application delivery parameters. n DDI in the data centre www.networkseuropemagazine.com 41Choosing an extreme temperature connector How picking the right connector first time can make the difference. Jonathan Parry, Senior Vice President of Global Operations and European Managing Director at cables and connectors company PEI-Genesis, explains how to choose an extreme temperature connector. Jonathan Parry, Senior Vice President Global Operations and European Managing Director PEI-Genesis extreme temperature connectors www.networkseuropemagazine.com 42When designing industrial equipment, the operating temperature of the product is often at the top of the list for design engineers. This makes sense, after all, you don’t want to keep replacing failed equipment. However, while engineers give a lot of thought to heat in the equipment itself, the performance of the connectors and cables that join different devices is often overlooked. For the average member of the public, choosing a connector is often as simple as deciding between a one or two metre USB cable, and we still get very annoyed when the connection starts to become unreliable. For the engineer the choice is far more complex, and the consequences far more serious than having to wiggle the connector until it works. A dropped connection could mean losing control of heavy autonomous equipment, a stopped machine and jammed-up production line, or many other detrimental effects that are best avoided. While the working equipment in industrial settings is often well monitored by governing software and vigilant engineers, it’s often the case that the connectors are overlooked. This is despite them being just as crucial as any other piece of line equipment. Hot stuff Heat, particularly in the extreme, is a factor that engineers constantly tackle. Choosing an extreme temperature connector extreme temperature connectors www.networkseuropemagazine.com 43Heat is a natural consequence of many industrial processes, and many more still involve heat directly in the process, such as smelting and other metalworks. Active cooling Most equipment uses active cooling to control this heat, such as ventilating fans, cooling lubricant sprays and water- cooling. For the connectors however active cooling is often not possible, which makes the choice of connector in the first instance very important. When dealing with hot environments it’s tempting to pick a connector with a metallic housing, such as steel or aluminium, simply because these metals typically don’t melt before a few-hundred degrees Celsius. Doing this overlooks major problems, however. For instance, the connector enclosure might easily withstand the high temperatures in question, but the components inside may not. The tightly packed and enclosed nature of connectors also means they act as a heatsink because heat isn’t actively wicked away, meaning the temperature inside the connector may be far higher than expected. Enclosing the component Many connectors, such as common USB and serial ports, rely on plastic inserts to house the contacts, while other connectors may also enclose electronic components such as resistors, ballasts and rectifying circuits, which may be susceptible to temperatures lower than the enclosure material. Even if temperatures don’t actually melt or scorch these plastic components, procedural stress caused by the high temperatures, as well as the effects of thermal expansion and contraction can cause connectors to fail well before their expected lifecycle. Particular attention must be paid to connectors in hot and enclosed environments, such as on trains and boat engine rooms. Here low-smoke-zero-halogen (LSZH) plastics are often used to avoid the build-up of dangerous fumes or explosive atmospheres created by burning or outgassing plastics. There are many examples of connectors that are been specifically designed for extreme temperatures. These connector will use specialised LSZH plastic or ceramic inserts and a variety of enclosure materials, giving them the capability to meet the stringent ISO 834-1 fire standards where the connectors are exposed to temperatures as high as 800 degrees Celsius for 15 minutes. Leaving connectors out in the cold Sliding back down the scale, we reach the arena of cold-temperature connectors. This initially seems far easier to solve than heat, primarily because most industrial processes are exothermic, but there are still some serious considerations to be made. The cold temperatures that connectors are exposed to are often natural, with connectors being continually exposed to the elements. These cold environments often preclude the use of many plastic and rubber enclosed connectors because they can freeze and crack, creating openings for moisture to wreak havoc on delicate electronic components. This makes metal a seemingly attractive choice, but in extreme temperature connectors 44 www.networkseuropemagazine.compractice it’s often prohibitively complex to design a metal enclosure with tolerances tight enough to protect from the weather. As temperatures fluctuate, the tight metal seals will inevitably fail simply due to thermal expansion and contraction. With the correct choice of connector configuration and materials, however, this style is perfectly possible. There are many ostensibly low-temperature capable connectors, but the best boast IP67 and DIN 400 50 ratings. Connectors like these are enclosed in PVC nitrile plastic, or similar materials that remain flexible, supple and resistant to cracking down to temperatures as low as -40 degrees Celsius. Many industries treat connectors as a quick, one-time decision taken during integration, despite the consequences of failure perpetually bringing the problem back onto the agenda. With some more consideration, though, it’s possible for that decision to be truly long-lasting, and ensures that you make the most out of the connecting equipment. n extreme temperature connectors 45 www.networkseuropemagazine.comToday’s communication systems are fundamental to business success and, as a result, customers of both service providers (SPs) and managed service providers (MSPs) are putting more and more pressure on networks, demanding ongoing increases in control and flexibility. SD-WAN evolving to reach mass-market www.networkseuropemagazine.com 46To keep up, SD-WAN has established itself as a compelling solution, helping SPs respond to this demand while continuing their steady migration to an environment defined by software and applications. Yet despite SD- WAN’s considerable traction it has yet to break into the mass-market. For many SME and enterprise businesses, the number of technical, commercial and strategic challenges that come with SD-WAN has put the technology stubbornly out of reach. To reach mass-market, then, SD-WAN needs to evolve Why SD-WAN needs to evolve to reach mass-market Sylvain Quartier VP of Marketing and Product Strategy Ekinops SD-WAN evolving to reach mass-market www.networkseuropemagazine.com 47into a more accessible technology. Now, as advances in enabling equipment are finally opening up the market, SPs are able to formulate a viable business case to broaden their addressable market and target a wider range of SME and enterprise customers. SD-WAN: the state of the market SD-WAN offers a huge amount of value. The technology has enabled enterprises to assume greater network control by defining and overlaying new, flexible architectures capable of prioritising the performance of critical applications, for example, without compromising the underlying network. Unsurprisingly, then, the SD-WAN market has grown rapidly in recent years. Yet this growth has created a market crowded with expensive off-the-shelf solutions from dominant vendors. Moreover, adoption around the world has been inconsistent. While a decent footprint has been established in the US - where businesses have actually championed a managed or co-managed services approach – markets in APAC and Europe have been slower to develop. With legacy MPLS access services cheaper and well-established, launching SD- WAN is considerably harder to justify in these regions than in North America, where the ROI is clearer. SD-WAN offers a huge amount of value. The technology has enabled enterprises to assume greater network control by defining and overlaying new, flexible architectures capable of prioritising the performance of critical applications, SD-WAN evolving to reach mass-market www.networkseuropemagazine.com 48Available options that don’t rely on installing an expensive, dedicated SD-WAN appliance from a major vendor have been limited. This has made it difficult for small and medium-sized players to create a commercially viable business case that would allow them to also adopt the DIY approach. Meanwhile, SPs and MSPs have often struggled to add SD-WAN to their portfolio of managed services, largely because demonstrating the ROI to customers has been so challenging. If SD-WAN is to fulfil analyst expectations and reach USD 4.1 billion globally by 2023, something needs to change to overcome the challenges that are holding the technology back from reaching mass-market. What’s the hold up? There are several barriers that have consistently held up businesses that would otherwise move forward with SD- WAN. Since SD-WAN vendor appliances rarely support the full range of connectivity and routing options, customers are often forced to either keep and run their traditional routers in parallel or abandon part of their unsupported legacy systems. Moreover, with a new appliance in place, enterprise IT departments must get to grips with both the operating system and with managing the appliance itself. This two-box approach not only impairs flexibility but also creates new costs and management overheads. That being said, no enterprise is asking to get rid of MPLS completely. Rather, they want greater agility and control over their application traffic management and cloud access. With many reluctant to make the leap, SD-WAN adoption has inevitably been delayed. Big brand off-the-shelf solutions also invariably deliver far more functionality than the SMB and smaller enterprise either wants or needs. This latent functionality is nonetheless rolled into the bill, needlessly increasing TCO. When an SMB simply wants to extend its network with local break-out, it doesn’t respond well to a ‘take it or leave it’ proposition. Traditionally, then, enterprises have been faced with a choice between a DIY approach and adopting a managed service. Unsurprisingly most are unwilling to shoulder the responsibility for building networks and would rather pass over WAN management to an SP, assuming they are still able to define application prioritisation and performance objectives. For service providers, however, offering SD-WAN solutions is often tricky business; by offering third-party solutions SPs miss out on brand visibility and revenues, while the SD- WAN vendor remains in control of the overlay via their own hardware. This loss of visibility and relationship control can also encourage enterprises to add-on other solutions independently, further eroding the SPs prospects with that customer. The next step for SD-WAN The SD-WAN market’s complex dynamics dictate that a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution simply doesn’t work. Each service provider has different needs, as do each of their customers. That said, a more tailored, open and strategic solution is now emerging which enables a broader, mass-market approach, including SMBs and the smaller sites of large enterprises. It begins with the development of a new equipment strategy. Instead of introducing new appliances and encouraging the abandonment of legacy services, an alternative approach is to focus on enhancing existing appliances to deliver tailored SD-WAN services in a modular, scalable, and accessible manner. This approach to SD-WAN is a radical break from existing deployment options. It is also a refreshing return to basics. By building on service providers’ strong core portfolio of services and customer relationships, SD-WAN can finally start to benefit the mass-market. In other words, service providers and their customers can harness the power of a digital transformation solution that champions evolution over network disruption. As ‘network consciousness’ continues to grow, so does the appeal of SD-WAN. For service providers, there has never been a better opportunity to get ahead of the pack. n As ‘network consciousness’ continues to grow, so does the appeal of SD-WAN. For service providers, there has never been a better opportunity to get ahead of the pack SD-WAN evolving to reach mass-market www.networkseuropemagazine.com 49Next >