Companies continue to roll out new products capable of leveraging the benefits of software-defined networking. SDN has become a major force within numerous industries – most notably the telecom sector – due to its capacity to improve service delivery and drive down operational costs. Given the increasing demand for high-quality network-based services, telcos and other organizations are likely to continue ramping up investments in SDN-based technology.
Global ICT service provider Huawei has been a major proponent of SDN solutions, developing network tools that leverage the technology's performance-enhancing benefits. The China-based organization recently had its contributions to SDN advancement recognized when its Agile S12700 Switch was awarded Miercom's Performance Verification Certification. Huawei's product is designed to ease the transition to full-scale SDN operability. The Agile S12700 is currently being targeted at campus environments, where networks have long presented concerns for officials. High-usage networks face a considerable performance issues due to the massive number of users competing for limited resources. SDN-based tools can help institutions, telecoms and other organizations ease their network strain by giving operators more direct control of available assets. Once SDN has been fully implemented, administrators can divert network resources as needed to avoid disruptive bottlenecks and meet localized spikes in demand.
Miercom officials analyzed the Agile S12700 Switch to verify that it met a variety of benchmarks required to ensure SDN functionality, including enabling Protocol Oblivious Forwarding. Huawei's product demonstrated other significant capabilities such as the ability to function effectively with fully loaded 384 10GE ports. Miercom evaluators reported that the switch maintained a high level of performance even after one of the four switching fabric modules was removed. Furthermore, the Agile S12700 Switch showcased a 100 percent line rate throughput 394 x 100GE ports after extensive testing.
"Overall, we found the Huawei Agile S12700 series switches to be full-featured, high-performance with excellent programmability. We've witnessed the S12700's smooth pace of go-to-market and commercial use deployment since August last year," said Miercom CEO Robert Smithers. "Just as we predicted and commented, the S12700 has been attracting and gaining high appraisals from global enterprise customers."
