Huawei Launches Lossless Ethernet Storage Network Solution NoF+ to Spark Digital Finance Innovation

At the Huawei Intelligent Finance Summit 2021, Huawei launched the lossless Ethernet storage networking solution, NoF+. The solution implements end-to-end data acceleration in storage scenarios by leveraging OceanStor Dorado all-flash storage systems and CloudEngine data center storage network switches. It fully unlocks the potential of all-flash performance, and injects new momentum into fintech innovation.

As a frontrunner in digital transformation, the financial industry is moving toward omni-channel coverage. Finance Everywhere has become the catalyst for explosive data growth and data infrastructure innovation, and the all-flash trend is now unstoppable. Since 2018, the global shipment of all-flash (SSDs) has far exceeded that of traditional mechanical disks (HDDs), delivering a 100x increase in read and write performance. In addition, Fibre Channel (FC) storage networks fail to match the requirements for concurrent high-throughput read/write mode of all-flash storage using NVMe interfaces. Both bandwidth and latency have become storage performance bottlenecks. As such, storage services call for a faster and higher-quality network.

As Ethernet technologies have evolved, lossless Ethernet has solved the problem of storage performance fluctuation caused by packet loss. More importantly, the performance of 25/40/100G Ethernet is much higher than that of 32G FC, making lossless Ethernet an important area of development in the all-flash era. Now, vendors and customers are proactively pushing the maturity of the lossless Ethernet-based NVMe over Fabrics (NoF) network ecosystem to the next level.

Huawei’s launch of the next-generation lossless Ethernet storage network solution NoF+ sits in line with the all-flash and all-IP trends of data center storage. Based on the intelligent lossless, perception, and collaboration features, the solution overcomes the packet loss challenges of traditional Ethernet and achieves high performance, high reliability, and easy O&M.

• Intelligent algorithms for 87% higher IOPS: Packet loss occurs on traditional Ethernet networks, where a packet loss of 0.1% decreases the network throughput by 50%. The Huawei NoF+ Solution includes an iLossless algorithm to achieve zero packet loss with 100% storage network throughput. Compared to FC, the IOPS improves by 87% and the latency reduces by 42%. In intra-city active-active scenarios, the solution uses 100GE links for 70 km lossless transmission, reducing cross-DC links by 90% compared to FC links.
• Proactive fault detection and failover within one second: Traditional Ethernet networks lack proactive fault detection and notification mechanisms. When a fault occurs, link failover takes a long time, thus interrupting storage services. The NoF+ Solution provides intelligent perception capabilities, meaning that switches can proactively report faults within milliseconds and work with storage devices to implement failover within one second, without affecting storage services when a single point of network failure occurs.
• Plug-and-play and one-click capacity expansion of storage: In storage scenarios, traditional Ethernet networks need to be manually configured node by node, which is a complex and error-prone process. The NoF+ Solution implements intelligent collaboration between storage devices and switches and supports plug-and-play and one-click capacity expansion of storage devices. Service changes can be automatically synchronized to the entire network after being configured at a single point, greatly improving the service provisioning efficiency.

Until now, the NoF+ Solution has been jointly innovated and commercially deployed in industries such as finance, carriers, and other enterprises. The solution takes full advantage of the million-level IOPS of all-flash storage and meets the petabyte-level development requirements of the financial industry. Looking forward, Huawei will continue to adhere to its customer-centric business strategy and work with partners to develop new and improve existing storage network practices.