Avaya Virtual Services Platform

High-performance, high-capacity, and high-availability for mission-critical data centers and very large campus core networks.

An agile, streamlined, next-generation Ethernet Switching solution that delivers high-performance, high-capacity, and high-availability for mission-critical data centers and very large campus core networks. The progressive evolution of the data center has created a new networking environment, no longer simply an extension of the enterprise campus; the data center has developed into an autonomous network with specific requirements and challenges. The Virtual Service Platform 9000 is the future-ready and future-proof solution to deliver the sought-after combination of performance, reliability, and scalability.

Who has the VSP 9000 been developed for?

The VSP 9000 has been specifically developed for organizations that:

• Require scalable, high-density 10GbE today, and with continued growth will need to position for future 40/100GbE
• Are suffering from performance limitations that result in poor application responsiveness
• Demand best-in-class resiliency
• Need to simplify network infrastructure operations in a highly virtualized environment
• Are required to deliver virtual services for multiple customers or user groups in a cloud computing environment

The VSP 9000 is for organizations that need to stabilize IT costs and make maximize the cost-effective use of their infrastructures. It is for companies that are virtualizing to increase the efficient and flexible use of servers and appliances, and want to reduce maintenance costs. It is for those who are running out of space in the data center and are experiencing exponential increases in power and cooling costs. It is for organizations that want to simplify, save, and equip their networks for the future.

With mission-critical application demands increasing networks are required to ensure uninterrupted business operations and a quality user experience. Networks are called upon to provide 24 x 7 access, help drive business agility, accelerate time-to-service, respond to the needs of new applications and increase efficiency – all while IT budgets are being pressurized to deliver more and more efficiency. 

Individual business imperatives will continue to evolve and so too must the network; cost-effectively adapting – forklift upgrades cause excessive disruption. The need is for a platform that is flexible and versatile, easily accommodates both growth and change – a platform that delivers support for new applications ahead of the pack. Equally important, that platform must be space and energy efficient. The right communications solution is critical to your success; the Avaya Virtual Services Platform 9000 is that solution. The Virtual Services Platform 9000 (VSP 9000) is a next-generation solution for mission-critical data centers and campus core networks, designed for the needs of large enterprises, and other such as multi-tenant operators. The VSP 9000 rises to meet customer requirements for a future-proof, ultra-reliable network that easily and cost-effectively facilitates services integration; it provides a less complex, more agile virtual network infrastructure. It simplifies the network and helps reduce the cost of deploying new services; the VSP 9000 enables the building of a dynamic data center, helping to deliver 24x7 uninterrupted access to enterprise applications and services.

The VSP 9000 delivers industry-leading performance and scalability, with immediate support for very high-density 1 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet, in addition to being future-ready for the emerging 40 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet standards. The fully scalable architecture helps ensure that network capacity seamlessly scales in line with performance requirements, without complex or expensive re-engineering. The VSP 9000 transforms the network and, as a result, the business, providing an ultra-reliable foundation for services such as communications-enabled ERP and CRM business processes, and unified communications. It not only simplifies the core network architecture but also offers enhanced flexibility and scalability to enable faster time-to-service in both data center and very large campus core deployment scenarios. By enabling the virtualized compute infrastructure to be more mobile, predictable, and available, the VSP 9000 fully delivers on the promise of centralizing services, all without compromising the high availability, performance, and security that’s required in an enterprise environment.

The key benefits of the VSP 9000

• A future-proof platform, offering an unmatched architecture that scales up to 27 terabits per second
• Delivers very high-density 1 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet today, meeting immediate performance and reliability needs
• Is future-ready for a seamless evolution to 40 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet
• An ultra-reliable platform, helping to ensure uninterrupted business operations
• Helps to lower operating costs, by reducing management complexity and simplifying the architecture

The VSP 9000 is specifically designed to support new and emerging requirements. Virtual application LANs enable applications hosted on virtual machines to move – on demand – from one location to another in a completely seamless fashion, and application-specific deep-packet filters help to ensure that only relevant traffic enters the virtual application LAN, delivering application security. 

The networking industry is a perpetual work-in-progress, an ‘unfinished masterpiece’, and the number of standards and recommendations now runs into the thousands. Equipment that is based on a traditional ASIC architecture is limited in that these are set at a certain point in this history and cannot easily adapt to future change. Typically this means that newer features and functionality are supported only in hardware and require additional software processing. The switching architecture of the VSP 9000 is uniquely based on Network Processing Units (NPU) rather than the ASIC technology typically found in rival products. NPUs are large-scale CPU arrays specifically designed for network-related functions such as efficient examination and manipulation of packet headers. Avaya’s specialized high-performance NPU is known as the Route Switch Processor (RSP) and is an in-house development. It delivers fast-path protection through its ability to support in-life firmware upgrades and provides 10Gbps line rate switching and routing capabilities regardless of Standards evolution.

The VSP 9000 leverages the RSP to deliver faster implementations of new, performance-optimized functionalities, thus meeting the needs of evolving applications without ASIC re-spins and major hardware changes.

How the VSP 9000 Delivers

The VSP 9000 is designed to meet three critical network requirements, and the VSP 9000 has the power to meet these requirements today, and to also scale as the business evolves and grows – an agility that delivers best-in-class longevity and investment protection.
 

The VSP 9000 supports an initial 240 port of 10G Ethernet in a compact 14RU Chassis – allowing three chassis per rack – and is based on a switching architecture that scales up to a 27Tbps, or over 100Tbps in a quad Switch Cluster configuration. Initial IPv4 forwarding rate is 1050Mpps per system. This architecture, combined with a lossless crossbar fabric, allows for seamless evolution to the emerging 40G and 100G Ethernet standards, for future services integration, and the delivering of Converged Enhanced Ethernet support. Leveraging the fully programmable RSP provides the VSP 9000 with the flexibility to incorporate future standards and protocol developments without a forklift upgrade, thus ensuring optimal performance and investment protection.

The VSP 9000 builds upon Avaya’s solid foundation of always-on technology to deliver maximum availability and continuity of business operations with zero service interruption. The VSP 9000 Operating System is based on a carrier-class real-time Linux operating system – and is market- proven by a huge, global carrier installed base where resiliency and scalability are absolutely critical. Avaya Data Solutions have a deep heritage of carrier-grade resiliency with our pioneering Switch Clustering technology utilizing split multi--link trunking and routed split multi-link trunking. The VSP 9000 takes this to the next level by providing network failover in less than 20 milliseconds. Instantaneous all-port re-routing means dramatically reduced packet loss. Innovative “in-service control plane integrity check” and “rapid failure detection and recovery of data path” provide system-level health check and self-healing capabilities. Hitless patching enables one software module to be patched without the requirement to reload the complete system image, thereby minimizing maintenance down time. And redundant control processor and switch fabric modules help ensure the VSP 9000 handles business critical information with utmost reliability.

This platform enables future services integration that can help consolidate and simplify network deployments. Avaya has pioneered a faster, simpler way to provide agile virtual network services. The VSP 9000 advances this innovation, offering layer 2 and 3 VPN services and “Application VPNs” based on technologies that far surpass rival industry offerings: including IP VPN-Lite, Shortest Path Bridging, and Virtual Control Service.

The introduction of virtualization has fundamentally changed how compute, network and storage resources are used and managed. From fixed sets of resources within physical constraints, we’ve now moved to virtual machines that can be created, moved, and removed on demand, and whose resource parameters can be changed dynamically. There is often a requirement for virtual machines to be moved from one physical server to another over disparate geographies. As multi-core processing architectures and virtualization trends take hold, new possibilities have emerged in how applications can be written. Newer, more powerful distributed applications are being developed and older applications are being retrofitted into the new service-oriented architectures. An optimized network must support the unprecedented agility of this virtualized compute environment.
 

Avaya VRF-Lite allows you to use the same hardware platform to create multiple layer 3 routing domains in supporting multiple customers or user groups. In allowing the switch to have multiple routing instances, more sophisticated connections are made possible and overlapping IP address spaces are supported. The system can be configured to provide inter-VRF forwarding capabilities to allow access to common resources without incurring additional capital or operational expenses. Combining VRF-Lite with other emerging technologies can provide a seamless connectivity environment for virtual users, connecting from anywhere in the enterprise network or branch offices without complex set-up or configuration.

The lossless fabric architecture, along with its 27Tbps switching capability and ultra-reliability, allows future services integration to simplify how enterprise data centers can be architected. The combination of services integration and virtual network services will drive network simplicity and ultimately lower OPEX; a prime example being split-plane next-generation wireless networking, where the control plane functionality is decoupled and re-located to the core/data center, freeing-up the data path for full performance optimization. Additional virtualization capability will be added in upcoming releases, including Avaya IP VPN-Lite, Shortest Path Bridging, and Virtualization Provisioning Service.

Avaya IP VPN-Lite is a unique, affordable and easy-to-use alternative to MPLS IP VPN. IP VPN-Lite allows you to deploy VPN services in the metro and campus without the complexity, cost and burdensome training requirements associated with MPLS. IP VPN-Lite runs over any flavor of IP routed core network, helping ensure a low-touch deployment. It utilizes IP-in-IP encapsulation and any-to-any connectivity with scalability that is equivalent to MPLS; all of the benefits of MPLS but without the notorious disadvantages.

If a service provider-supplied MPLS WAN in place already exists, IP VPN-Lite can be used to seamlessly extend existing VPN connections into the campus or metro area. In deploying IP VPN-Lite in this fashion, there’s no need to change the WAN and no requirement to deploy MPLS in the campus. IP VPN-Lite offers simplified management, administration, troubleshooting and maintenance versus the more complex, multi-layered MPLS. It can be leveraged as a standalone, cost-effective alternative to MPLS or as an extension to current MPLS deployments, offering less complex management, training and maintenance.

Shortest Path Bridging – MAC (SPBM) offers the ability to create a simplified network layer that can dynamically virtualize elements of the network to fully and efficiently utilize network and computing resources, thus reducing the strain on networking resources and personnel. When combined with Virtual Control Service, SPBM can – for example – provide “Application VPNs” to help ensure that VMware VMotion virtual applications within and between data centers are dynamically and seamlessly moved or extended, without the provisioning complexity associated with rival solutions. SPBM, an IEEE 802.1aq draft standard, offers a robust, resilient alternative to today’s existing offerings and it delivers Ethernet-based services and solutions while maintaining Ethernet’s key value propositions of simplicity and cost-effectiveness.

Avaya’s Virtualization Provisioning Service (VPS) improves efficiency and flexibility when managing highly dynamic virtual machine environments across the extended Data Center. Enhanced orchestration and management tools optimize the efficiency of VMware vCenter live migrations, facilitating more efficient real-time maintenance, dramatically improving time-to-service, reducing errors, delivering effective disaster recovery, and lowering total cost of ownership.