Technology innovation unleashes the potential of cloud computing to empower the internet economy

Cisco helps Alibaba Infrastructure Service to build their next-generation data center

Beijing, November 13, 2017 — A participant in The Computing Conference in Hangzhou in October, Cisco is collaborating closely with Alibaba’s infrastructure service team to build an industry-leading, next-generation data center. Together, Cisco and Alibaba are driving the effort to make networks increasingly visible and intelligent by leveraging innovative technologies for next-generation data center switching networks. The new data center will be continually updated and iterated to become a paradigm for the architecture of China’s Internet industry, and will also unleash the unlimited potential of cloud computing and big data to empower the development of the Internet economy.

Cloud and digitization are the foundation for building an intelligent society combining technology and ecosystems. Cisco is partnering with Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, one of the leading global cloud computing and artificial intelligence (AI) companies. Alibaba Cloud provides secure and scalable computing and machine intelligence services for businesses, developers and government agencies across the globe.

A secure cloud architecture for networks is the cradle for the birth and growth of the Internet economy, and with the computing, storage and application of data in the Internet era, business models and people’s everyday life are changing accordingly. Computing is penetrating into various industries and sectors, providing a tremendous data engine. As many customers and businesses of various sizes and requirements have been migrated to Alibaba’s cloud platform, the data center network that supports the cloud platform has become a focus of attention, and the center’s capabilities for network operation and maintenance have become an integral part of the platform’s competitiveness. As the global technology leader, Cisco supported Alibaba’s infrastructure service team in developing a deeply customized data center architecture that leverages Cisco’s advanced insights into the future trend of data centers as well as its high-quality, reliable and innovative technology products.

With architectural flexibility, Cisco technology helps Alibaba’s data center network improve agility and simplify operations. Cisco Nexus 9000 Series switches were deployed for Alibaba’s 25G/100G Data Center architecture, providing a network platform with a proven track record of high performance, high density, low latency and outstanding energy efficiency. The Nexus 9000 Series switches use Cisco breakthrough Cloud Scale ASIC technology and operate under Cisco’s NX-OS software or the Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) model. Today, the value of Cisco’s long-term spending on R&D comes to fruition in Alibaba’s 25G/100G Data Center, which has completed its large-scale deployment, and already been quickly iterated to the second-generation architecture of 25G/100G.

As the technical partner for the switching network of Alibaba’s next-generation data center, Cisco uses its CloudScale chip featuring 16nm FF+ technology in order to work closely with Alibaba’s technical progression and bring greater performance, lower energy consumption, better cost, and granular network telemetry to the customized 3.6T and 6.4T single-chip switches for data centers. As businesses and hot spots differ and the underlying system evolves, the massive data flowing through Alibaba’s next-generation data center presents new challenges to a relatively static physical network. With technical support from Cisco, Alibaba’s Network Planning, Operations and Maintenance Department combined big data and AI technologies to collect and analyze network traffic data and performance indexes in real time and use algorithms to identify, process and optimize the network.

“Cisco has always been able to accurately take the pulse of technology iteration amidst the digital t ransformation wave, to help businesses drive growth through innovation,” said Tuqiang Cao, Vice President of Cisco and Chief Technology Officer for Greater China. “We’re very excited to be able to join hands with Alibaba for an innovative experiment on data centers in China’s Internet industry. In the future, our two companies will continue to collaborate with each other in areas such as data center interconnection, data traffic visualization, and network assurance, and keep empowering the development of the global Internet economy.”