New-Generation Core Engine to Provide the Highest Performance in the World

48Tbps Switching Capacity：

• CE12800 provides currently 2Tbps bandwidth per slot and a maximum of 48Tbps switching capacity. This can support sustainable development of cloud-computing data centers for the next 10 years.
• The CE12800 switches, together with the CE6800/5800 series TOR switches, can build a 360T non-blocking switching network platform that supports the evolution of four generations of servers (from GE/10GE to 40GE/100GE).



Terabit High-density Line Cards：

• Each slot has a forwarding capacity of 960Gbps.
• The CE12800 switches have line cards with the highest densities in the industry, such as 8*100GE and 24*40GE/96*10GE line cards.
• Each switch provides a maximum of 96*100GE and 288*40GE line-speed ports or 1152*10GE line-speed ports.



Super Large Buffer on 100GE Ports

• All service ports (100GE/40GE/10GE) support 100 ms buffering.
• The distributed buffering mechanism on inbound interfaces can effectively handle incast traffic in data centers.
• Each line card has a 16GB buffer and interfaces share the buffer dynamically to improve usage efficiency.



Advanced Architecture to Enhance Efficiency and Reliability

Non-blocking CLOS Architecture

• Three-level CLOS architecture: With an orthogonal design, service line cards and switch fabric units of the CE12800 constitute a multi-level multi-plane switch fabric. This switch fabric allows almost unlimited capacity expansion, helping implement large-scale non-blocking switching in data centers.
• Dynamic routing and load balancing: The CE12800 uses the variable size cell (VSC) for dynamic routing. A unified arbitration mechanism is used to ensure fair route selection and load balancing among switching paths so that links are used 100%. Compared with static routing based on hash algorithms, dynamic routing prevents congestion caused by unbalanced traffic distribution on the switch fabric.
• Virtual Output Queuing (VoQ): The VoQ mechanism adds packets with different destinations to multiple virtual output queues to prevent head of line blocking (HOL). This mechanism implements QoS control on the switch fabric and ensures real-time service transmission.



Industrial-grade Reliability

• Super high reliability: The CE12800 series provide industrial-grade reliability, with a mean time between failures (MTBF) of 22.5 years. The high reliability and the in-service software upgrade (ISSU) feature meet customer requirements for service continuity.
• Redundancy of all core components and hot swappable modules: The main control units work in 1+1 hot backup mode and switch fabric units work in N+M hot backup mode. The power supplies support N+N backup and have an independent heat dissipation system. Each fan tray has two counter-rotating fans working in 1+1 backup mode.
• Triple-plane design: The control plane, data plane and monitoring plane of the CE12800 are independent of each other. This design improves system reliability and ensures service continuity.



Comprehensive Virtualization Capabilities to Support Flexible Deployment

Virtual System (VS), Implementing On-Demand Resource Sharing

• Highest device virtualization capability: The CE12800 uses VS technology to provide an industry-leading virtualization capability of 1:8. One switch can be virtualized into a maximum of eight logical switches, allowing one core switch to manage services of different areas (such as production area, office area and DMZ) or multiple tenants.
• Higher security and reliability: The VS technology divides a network into multiple isolated logical areas for service isolation. The failure of one virtual system does not affect other virtual systems and therefore network security is enhanced.
• Lower CAPEX: The VS technology virtualizes a physical switch into multiple logical switches to implement on-demand resource allocation, improving the usage efficiency of physical devices. This technology ensures network scalability while reducing investment in devices.
• Lower OPEX: As one physical device can be used as multiple logical devices, space is saved in a data center equipment room, while the cost of device maintenance is also reduced.



Cluster Switch System (CSS), Facilitating Network Management

• The CE12800 uses industry-leading CSS technology, which can virtualize a maximum of four physical switches into one logical switch to better facilitate network management and improve reliability.
• The CE12800 provides a cluster bandwidth of 640Gbps, which is four times higher than the industry average. This super high bandwidth prevents traffic bottlenecks on data center networks.
• The CE12800 switches establish a cluster using service ports and allow a maximum distance of 80 km between cluster member switches.
• The CE12800 series innovatively uses CSS+VS synergy technology to turn a network into a resource pool so that network resources can be allocated on demand. This on-demand resource allocation is perfect for the cloud-computing service model.



Large-scale Routing Bridge, Supporting Flexible Service Deployment

• All CloudEngine series switches support Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links (TRILL), a standard IETF protocol. The TRILL protocol helps build a large Layer 2 network with more than 500 nodes, which allows flexible service deployment and VM migration in a wide range. 10GE/GE servers can also be used on a TRILL network.
• The TRILL protocol uses a routing mechanism similar to IS-IS and sets a limited TTL value in packets to prevent Layer 2 loops. This significantly improves network stability and speeds up network convergence.
• On a TRILL network, all data flows are forwarded quickly using shortest path tree (SPF) and equal-cost multipath (ECMP) routing. SPF and ECMP avoid the suboptimal path selection problem in STP and increase the link bandwidth efficiency to 100%.
• The CE12800 supports up to 32 TRILL-based Layer 2 equal-cost paths, greatly improving load balancing capabilities of links. The network has fat-tree architecture to support smooth expansion.



Innovative Energy Saving Technologies to Build a Green Data Center

Efficient Power Supply System, Flexible Redundancy

• The CE12800 is equipped with the industries most efficient digital power modules, which have a power efficiency of 96%.
• The system measures power consumption in real time and sets one or more power modules in sleeping mode to save power when the system power consumption is low.
• The CE12800 can adjust the power consumption of components to adapt to changes in service traffic volume, saving energy dynamically.



Patented Ventilation Channel Design, Smart Heat Dissipation

• The CE12800 uses a patented front-to-rear ventilation channel design that isolates cold air channels from hot air channels, meeting heat dissipation requirements in data center equipment rooms.
• The straight ventilation channels of line cards eliminate channel cascading and separate cold air from hot air to improve heat dissipation efficiency.
• The CE12800 supports a maximum of 17 fan trays and each fan tray has two counter-rotating fans. The fan trays are divided into several groups, each group serving line cards in an area. The fan speed in each area can be dynamically adjusted based on workload of line cards in this area. This on-demand cooling design lowers power consumption and reduces noises.

Application in a Data Center

On a typical data center network, CE12800 switches work as core switches and CE6800/CE5800 switches work as TOR switches. CE6800/CE5800 switches connect to CE12800 switches through 40GE/10GE ports. The CE12800 and CE6800/CE5800 switches use the TRILL protocol to build a non-blocking Layer 2 network, which allows large-scale VM migration and flexible service deployment.

Note: The TRILL protocol can also be used on campus networks to support flexible service deployment in different service areas.

Application on a Campus Network

On a typical campus network, two CE12800 switches are virtualized into a logical core switch using the CSS technology. Multiple CE6800 switches at the aggregation layer form a logical switch using the iStack technology. The CSS and iStack technologies improve network reliability and simplify network management. At the access layer, CE5800 switches are stacked using iStack technology to provide high-densities of line-speed ports.

Note: The CSS technology is also widely used in data centers to facilitate network management.