Special Issue on Solving Social Issues Through Business Activities NEC Enterprise SDN Solutions

WAN Connection Optimization Solution for Offices

and Data Centers to Improve the WAN Utilization
and Management
MIYAUCHI Mikio, NUMAZAKI Takeshi, OKU Yasuhiro, YAMASHITA Hidetaka, KOBAYASHI Daisuke

Abstract
A lot of companies built own corporate networks. WAN connects these corporate networks between offices and data
centers. The corporate network consists of a backbone network, computer network, Internet connection and telephony
systems. Network traffic patterns of these networks have different characteristics (different peak/off-peak times), which
have redundant bandwidths constantly somewhere in the corporate network. The corporate executives who expect to
improve the cost efficiency of networks, especially decreasing the connection fee of communication lines, and improving
flexibility for the WAN usages. Moreover flexible WAN usage such as use of datacenter services, ensuring BC/DR (business
continuity/disaster recovery) and use of public cloud services are required to support.
This paper discusses our solutions to optimize WANs between offices and datacenters that allow our customers to solve
the issues.

Keywords
SDN, OpenFlow, WAN, line utilization rate, line cost, operation quality, operation cost

1. Introduction 2. Problems of Corporate Networks (WANs)

Most corporate networks today are based on IP communica- Current corporate networks (WANs) connect each corporate
tions. WANs (Wide Area Networks) used for those corporate network (backbone system, enterprise system, Internet con-
networks consist of a combination of communication lines nection, and telephony systems, etc.) between shared system
such as wide-area Ethernet networks, IP-VPNs, and Internet (business servers, Internet connection gateways, SIP servers,
VPNs. These line services guarantee network bandwidth that etc.) and offices. Their network traffic characteristics differ
can keep a connection at the peak traffic. In order to ensure from system to system. For example, the characteristics of
the communication reliability, enterprises sometimes prepare backbone system are that the most traffic are text data, the
backup communication lines that are only used in emergen- bandwidth size is only a few Mbps, large scale network traffic
cies in addition to the main line. This configuration which are occurred in the morning and evening while small scale
has backup line encourages the usage of datacenters and is traffic at night. Also, internet traffic characteristics are that
installed to the network systems that achieve BC/DR, public large scale traffic is occurred due to the transmission of image
clouds, private clouds, etc. Such trend has been increasing the and video files and the network traffics at lunch time tend to
network bandwidth of WAN. be increased.
This paper discusses our solutions to optimize offices and In such optimizing solutions, each network with different
datacenters connection that improves the cost efficiency of traffic characteristics as mentioned above are multiplexed to
communication networks, improve operational quality and one or multiple physical networks. Then the communications
decrease system installation cost to utilize the redundant band- are carried out each other while considering the necessity of
width that are only used at peak time and the backup commu- redundancy configuration based upon the reliability require-
nication lines effectively that are used only in emergencies. ments. Required bandwidth is in most cases calculated by total
These solutions are achieved by SDN technologies (Soft- network traffic size of each network at peak-time. Such net-
ware-Defined Networking). work usage, nevertheless, is inefficient because the peak time

NEC Technical Journal／Vol.8 No.2／Special Issue on SDN and Its Impact on Advanced ICT Systems　　21
NEC Enterprise SDN Solutions

WAN Connection Optimization Solution for Offices and Data Centers to Improve the WAN Utilization and Management

of each network is different so that it constantly has redundant networks and to enable the virtualization of corporate net-
bandwidth. Telecom carriers assure 99.99% of the availability works. Then, end user devices of each office are divided into
of existing WAN services under the SLA (Service Level Agree- two groups according to the usage priority of the business sys-
ment), so the backup communication lines are almost unused. tem. Next, the virtualized corporate network is built while be-
Moreover, some users always expect the same network re- ing divided into two categories of priorities - high and regular.
sponse time at peak times as off–peak times, while other users Finally the priority controls and bandwidth controls for each
tolerate the deterioration of response time to some degree. The virtual network as well as the communication path control
communication line fee and the response time have been de- for each flow (the packet flow of each business application in
cided equally for all users. However, there must be some com- the communications between terminals) are carried out. Such
munications and users that should have been given priority in functions have achieved the effective usage of bandwidth and
an emergency if any disaster occurs. optimal efficiency of communication line fee.
On the other hand, main tasks of network management was Moreover, these solutions achieve network visualization
monitoring the communications availability/unavailability and through the centralized control of both physical and virtual
taking a corrective action on communication deteriorations. networks in order to control traffics per flow-base. This makes
However, tasks to improve the communication performance it possible to deal with performance incidents much easier,
are recently increasing: deterioration in response time, the such as deterioration in response time, etc. System mainte-
abnormal network traffic occurrence from specific business nance can also be performed easily; thereby operators enable
centers, etc. Such situation tends to prolong the trouble shoot- to modify the system without referring to configuration files.
ing time required to deal with those incidents. Moreover, the This means that operations may be conducted by an operator
physical system configuration was complicated, if enterprises that has not yet gained advanced technical proficiency.
operate WAN internally, the technicians who deal with the sys- Therefore, our solutions are effective for high-cost commu-
tem trouble have to acquire the technological skills of system nication line.
designs and configuration of each ICT products. Furthermore,
the current trend of active M&As and organizational reforms 3.1 System configuration
bring about an increase of opening, closing and merging offic-
es. In consequence, network configuration changes between A system configuration model of the optimization solution
LANs and WANs are increasing. for office/data center connection is shown in Fig. 2.
The system is basically configured with two data centers -
3. Optimization Solutions for Office/Data Center Connections primary and secondary, on the assumption of the assurance of
BC/DR, as well as of major offices such as HQs, sales office,
An overview of the optimization solutions for office/data production plant and logistics center.
center connections is shown in Fig. 1. The UNIVERGE PF6800 (controller) and UNIVERGE
Our solutions are aimed at effective use of WAN. The con- PF5000 Series (switch) that use OpenFlow technology are ap-
cept of SDN is applied to WAN in order to integrate physical plied to achieve SDN. The UNIVERGE PF6800 is installed in

1) Flow dynamic control *VTN:Virtual Tenant Network

between WANs
Data center Optimization of routes and Headquarters
bandwidths

VM VM
Corporate LANs
VM VM
DC LAN
VTN
VTN
WAN
Data center

Branches, Offices,
sales offices factories
VM VM 2) Operation management
VM VM efficiency by using network
virtualization
Flexible network operations
independent from physical
network configuration

Fig. 1 Overview of an optimization solution for an office/data center connection.

22　　NEC Technical Journal／Vol.8 No.2／Special Issue on SDN and Its Impact on Advanced ICT Systems
 NEC Enterprise SDN Solutions

WAN Connection Optimization Solution for Offices and Data Centers to Improve the WAN Utilization and Management

Customer Data Center (Primary) sion is performed by multiplexing (inbound) the new route to
Operation control system
Customer Data Center
the data system lines that connect between offices and data cen-
(Secondary) ters. Consequently, routers are installed to connect UNIVERGE
Operation control
server/
UNIVERGE UNIVERGE PF5000 series switches located in different offices.
PF6800 PF5000
monitoring server
series LAN
located
UNIVERGE PF6800 and the monitoring server use SNMP
in the
Appliance data (Simple Network Management Protocol) for monitoring the
center

DC LAN UNVERGE physical network while the UNIVERGE PF6800 uses a con-
IX router
UNIVERGE
PF5000
series
UNVERGE
IX router
trol network for monitoring the virtual network. Additionally,
WAN (A
Ordinary offices the UNIVERGE PF6800 manages both physical and virtual
Main offices (HQ, etc.) system)
(Branches, factories, etc.)
network configuration. Automatic and scheduled operations
UNIVERGE
PF5000
series WAN (B
LAN
are achieved by configuring the operation control system under
system)
the linkage operation between the monitoring system and the
HQ LAN located
in the
office
UNVERGE
IX router
Internet
UNVERGE
IX router
operational control server.

Fig. 2 System configuration model of the optimization solution for the office/ 3.2 Solution Features
data center connections.
The main features of the “WAN connection optimization for
offices and data centers” include the following two improve-
the data center (primary) while the UNIVERGE PF5000 Series ments: (1) Efficiency of WAN line usage and (2) Efficiency of
is installed in the offices that are to be connected to the LANs WAN operation management by using network virtualization.
of the data centers, HQs and offices respectively. The details are described below.
Multiple communication routes are provided for the lines (1) Improvement in the efficiency of WAN line usage
that connect between offices and the data centers, and these As discussed above, physical networks are integrated,
are used in an active/active configuration and not in an active/ corporate networks are virtualized and applied a prior-
standby configuration. Essentially, three routes are provided ity control in two-level with each virtual network. This
between the data centers (primary and secondary) whereas two makes it possible to use the connection line under the ac-
routes are provided between the data centers and the offices. tive/active configuration so that the efficient usage of line
When OpenFlow is to be applied to a corporate WAN, a con- capacity can be achieved. Moreover, the operation control
trol system network that connects the UNIVERGE PF6800 and system enables the communication route control accord-
UNIVERGE PF5000 Series is required (not shown in Fig. 2 for ing to the time of day and communication line usage (for
the sake of convenience). However, in order to set this route example; batch processing at night, ensuring enough
between offices additional communication lines will be required bandwidth for business systems whose service time is
and additional communication fee for installing new lines will fixed, prevention of deterioration in the response time by
be expected. In order to avoid such an additional cost, transmis- rerouting traffic when traffic volume is increased, etc.)

Before introducing this solution PF Series After introducing this solution Series
200 Mbps
Data center fixed Data center Data center 100 Mbps Data center
(Tokyo) (Osaka) (Tokyo) (Osaka)
Active Active
WAN WAN#1

Stand-by Active
WAN WAN#2

50 Mbps 100 Mbps

Server fixed Server Server Server

With active WAN, communication line By using both active WANs #1 and #2 at
utilization is 50% (100 Mbps) at off-peak same time, 140 Mbps for current line and 60
Mbps for peak time are provided.
times and 80% (160 Mbps) at peak times.
Even when communication line outage
Stand-by WAN is only used for emergencies. occurs, 100 Mbps is assured.

* The above mentioned line bandwidths are examples.

Fig. 3 Example of improved communication line utilization

NEC Technical Journal／Vol.8 No.2／Special Issue on SDN and Its Impact on Advanced ICT Systems　　23
NEC Enterprise SDN Solutions

WAN Connection Optimization Solution for Offices and Data Centers to Improve the WAN Utilization and Management

Thus, improvement in the utilization of communication Operation control system

lines and bandwidths, improvement in line fee efficiency Operation definition
and the stable operation of network response time may be (in advance) when 2) Commands based on operation
abnormalities or outages definition to avoid incidents
achieved. occur. API
Fig. 3 shows an example of improved utilization of 1)
WAN. This case uses WANs which guarantee 200/50- Operation control server/ ProgrammableFlow
monitoring server Controller
Mbps bandwidth in an active/standby configuration, with
1)
100-Mbps (50% usage) traffic at off-peak times and 160- SNMP SecCh 1) 3) Configuration
1) Abnormality/outage alert 3) modification control
Mbps (80% usage) at peak times (note that these are com-
Physical network Virtual network
mon line usage). 100/100 Mbps communication can be
achieved in an active/active configuration to be applied to
SDN. While 200 Mbps can be ensured in off-peak times, Fig. 4 The monitoring and control systems integrateion.
traffic at peak time can also be dealt with. In spite of the
one communication line outage, the other 100Mbps com-
munication line can use for the communication equivalent This solution can reduce the impact of the differences in
to the off-peak times network traffic. If the network out- the skill and know-how of the network operators.
age occurs at a peak time, the response time deteriorates
(the priority control function puts priority on the specific
4. Conclusion
terminal group), but the communication does not break.
(2) Improvement in the efficiency of WAN operation man- These solutions will significantly change the way to use com-
agement munication lines of telecom carriers in a corporate WAN, and
A conventional WAN system consists of multiple physi- improve the effective line resources usage, thereby achieve the
cal systems that are complicatedly connected each other, communication line fee improvement. This solution will meet
and the system monitoring function has been focused on the social needs where there is a tendency toward increased
live monitoring, trap monitoring and linkup condition traffic flows. We believe that this solution will contribute to the
monitoring. With regard to traffic monitoring, it is often realization of a secure, safe, efficient and flourishing society.
not performed at all or is executed only by limited num-
ber of ports. As a result, it takes much time to solve the * OpenFlow is a trademark or registered trademark of Open Networking Foun-
performance incident such as “response time deteriora- dation.
tion”, “no response from a certain business application”
or “LAN looping occurrence”, etc.
Applied to the SDN technology, centralized control of both Authors’ Profiles
physical and virtual networks is now possible, and both MIYAUCHI Mikio
physical and virtual networks are now visualized. Therefore, SDN Strategy
Senior Expert
the conditions of failures and rerouting of each business/
division system can be confirmed with a simple operation. NUMAZAKI Takeshi
The system operator who does not have deep technology SDN Strategy
skills and knowledge can operate and manage this network Manager

system, so that even IT system operator can do it. OKU Yasuhiro

Moreover, it allows operator to control traffics per flow, NEC System Technologies, Ltd.
so that the performance incident, which used to require 2nd Solutions Business Unit
Services Division
much time to be solved, can now be dealt with smoothly. Project Manager
This solution enables reduction of both cause analysis
time and the number of related processes. YAMASHITA Hidetaka
NEC System Technologies, Ltd.
Furthermore, as shown in Fig. 4, the operation control
2nd Solutions Business Unit
system that collaborates with a monitoring system (mon- Services Division
itoring server and UNIVERGE PF6800) and an operation Assistant Manager

control server makes it possible to cope with events that

KOBAYASHI Daisuke
happen during night time. This is because automatic op- NEC Networks & System Integration Corporation
eration is now possible by registering the operation defi- Network Services Business Unit
Network Solutions Division
nitions for detecting events (such as system outages or
abnormalities) in advance to the operation control server.

24　　NEC Technical Journal／Vol.8 No.2／Special Issue on SDN and Its Impact on Advanced ICT Systems
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Vol.8 No.2 SDN and Its Impact on Advanced ICT Systems

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NEC SDN Solutions - NEC’s Commitment to SDN
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