CloudNets S4 E6: Data Center Interconnect (DCI)
Data Center Interconnect in the AI Era
Data centers that are moving towards supporting AI workloads, which means an explosion in capacity and needing more infrastructure to support this demand. The traditional very large chassis is not enough anymore. Network operators need limitless capacity, as well as a flawless, lossless performance to meet AI performance. They need to support Layer 3 traffic. And all of these are featured in the Distributed Disaggregated solution available from DriveNets.
CloudNets S4E6: What are the 3 changes that AI made to DCI?
The three changes that AI made to DCI are capacity, performance, and one environment and layer three capabilities.
Key Takeaways
- Increased Capacity Needs: The AI boom has led to large-scale workloads involving thousands of GPUs, generating substantial traffic. Consequently, DCI solutions must offer enhanced scalability to manage these increased traffic flows effectively.
- Enhanced Performance Requirements: AI applications demand lossless connections between data centers to ensure optimal performance. This necessitates DCI solutions with deep buffering capabilities to handle high-performance needs without packet loss.
- Layer 3 Capabilities and Unified Environment: Modern DCI solutions should function as routers, capable of managing numerous eBGP connections. This ensures seamless integration and communication across interconnected data centers, highlighting the importance of advanced Layer 3 capabilities in the AI era
Full Transcript
Hi and welcome back to CloudNets, where networks meet cloud.
Today we’re going to talk about DCI, Data Center Interconnect.
No, no, don’t go.
I know it seems like a boring subject, but DCI is going through something and this something is called AI.
And we have Shai, our interconnect and AI expert.
Again, thank you Shai for coming.
Thank. Thank you for having me.
3 changes that AI made to DCI
So Shai, what are three points or three changes that AI made to DCI and what do we need to do with the new DCI requirements?
So we have three things that we need to remember as you said.
First of all, we need to talk about capacity.
Okay.
Secondly, we need to talk about performance.
And thirdly, we need to talk about one environment and layer 3 capabilities.
Okay.
Okay.
1 Capacity
So let’s start with the first one with capacity.
Okay.
We all feel the AI boom that we have right now.
This means that those large scale workloads with thousands of GPUs generate a lot of traffic.
And we need to have DCI solution with enough scalability to handle those traffic flows.
Okay.
This is one no longer single chassis is enough for all CI needs.
You need much more than that.
Okay, what about performance?
Yeah.
2 Performance
Secondly, we have performance.
No gigas.
Performance, AI, great performance.
This means you need a lossless connection between one data center to the other.
So you need deep buffering capabilities in the DCI.
Something that many of the DCI solutions that we have right now doesn’t have.
Okay, we talked about it a bit when we talk about AI workloads and the job completion time performance.
Now it is expanding to the DCI and we feel the heat here as well.
One environment and layer 3 capabilities
Third thing was one environment.
One like layer 3.
You need a router.
Basically.
Yeah.
You need the router capabilities like for example, 1000 EVGPs.
You need to handle those thousands of EVGP connections and you need a real router to handle this.
This means that you need a solution that can handle all those three points capacity.
You need to have something that can handle the lossless connection and have one capability.
Let’s think about solutions.
No such a solution.
I don’t know.
DDC!
No.
Really?
Okay.
So we’ve been talking about it for 4 seasons.
Yes.
But now DDC is a good fit for this.
Yeah.
Imagine that.
Yeah.
Okay, so velocity.
Yeah, it can do it.
It’s in scale, basically.
Yeah.
Secondly, we have the performance, it’s not.
The scheduled fabric rebound offerings.
And what better author do we have than DDC?
The best.
Okay.
Okay.
Wow.
This was an amazing revelation.
So, three things you need to remember about the new DCI.
The DCI in the AI era, the DCI that connects data centers that are moving towards AI.
One is an explosion in capacity, needs no more.
One large, very large chassis, it is not enough anymore.
I think there are some operators that do eight chassis,
and still it is not enough.
So you need limitless capacity.
You need a flawless, lossless performance.
AI performance.
We talked about it a lot.
And you need layer 3 because you need EVGP, et cetera, et cetera.
And all of these exist in the DDC solution available from DriveNets.
So.
Okay, this looks nice.
Okay, thank you very much, and, for joining again.
Thank you for watching.
See you next time on CloudNets.
Bye.
