Solution Overview

Nortel Networks

High-Performance
Data Center solutions
for service providers
 High-Performance
Data Center
solutions

In the 1970s, corporate data lived in monolithic mainframes accessed by select gurus
behind locked doors. In the 1980s, that mainframe kingdom dissolved into a democracy
of desktop PCs, available to anyone with a shrink-wrapped box of software. In the
1990s, the Internet bonded those renegade PCs into networks that could now share
central, server-based applications.

Seeing a trend? The evolution is coming full circle, with a twist. Enterprises are reining
their information assets back in again... replacing desktop software with client-server
applications, consolidating information delivery into server farms, and exploiting the
Internet for critical data center requirements.

Given that IT managers are trying to do more with less, service providers have a key
opportunity at hand.

If you’re a service provider looking for Enterprise IT managers are primed

the right way to leverage your existing
network and move beyond commodity
services, Nortel Networks has the
answer with High-Performance Data
Centers. Take advantage of innovations
in networking, content management,
and security to provide IP-based data
center services as managed services
offered to enterprises.
to turn to service providers for
‘pay-as-you-play’ data center services.
Managed data center services would
enable them to transition effectively
from legacy to IP-based infrastruc-
tures... from renegade computing to
‘distributed’ computing with full
control, security, and accountability...
and from individual desktops to
converged data centers equipped for
full business protection and continuity.
 From customer premises to data center core, Nortel Networks
has new ways to deliver value and operating efficiencies...
new ways to create and propagate high-value, high-margin
services across managed IP networks and the global Internet.
What is a High-Performance Data Center?
The High-Performance Data Center is
defined more by its characteristics than
specific architecture, because service-
specific components can be mixed and
matched as needed. From customer
premises to data center core, Nortel
Networks has developed new ways to
deliver value and operating efficien-
cies...new ways to create and propagate
services across managed IP networks
and the global Internet. Our solution
includes industry-leading components
for a comprehensive range of data
center functions and managed service
opportunities:
• Ethernet switching with intelligent
management of traffic among
servers and devices
• Virtual private networks connecting
branch offices and road warriors to
headquarters
• High-performance security protec-
tion without performance penalty
• Intelligent routing and redirection
for premium response times and
resource utilization
• High-speed optical connectivity
across metro and wide-area
networks, or between data centers
• High-availability content storage,
caching, distribution, management,
and accounting
You could start by adding an Alteon
Web Switching Module to an existing
Nortel Networks Passport 8600
Routing Switch for Layer 2-7 traffic
classification, filtering, forwarding, and
routing to offer local and global server
load balancing as a managed service.
Add a Nortel Networks Alteon SSL
Accelerator to offer a service that
speeds up processing-intensive secure
connections. Or add an Alteon
Switched Firewall to offer managed
gigabit-speed firewalls as a service
enhancement or stand-alone service.
Distributed ‘intelligence’ and Web-
optimized components transform the
IP intranet or Internet from a simple
transport infrastructure into a dynamic,
efficient, flexible, manageable entity
that delivers specialized services and
content.
With our High-Performance Data
Center infrastructure, you can support
high-value, high-margin content
delivery, caching, Web hosting,
eCommerce solutions, and more.
Think big and start small, or think
“early mover advantage” and start big.
Revenue and market-share benefits
scale with the solution.
 New service opportunities on
IP networks and the Internet
Service providers can use High-
Performance Data Center solutions
as the foundation for a new range of
managed services. The data center
architecture can be configured to
support any or all of these solutions:
• Secure Hosting Data Centers
support a wide range of managed
services for enterprises—such as
network-level security and relia-
bility for critical eBusiness applica-
tions, consolidation of servers and
network resources, and high-
performance security without
performance penalties.
Figure 1. High-Performance Data
Centers benefits Think beyond transport;
use managed IP networks
to deliver high-value, high-
margin services and content.
Maximize network efficiency
with caching, intelligent
routing, local/global server
load balancing, server
acceleration, and more.
Offer end-to-end security
as enhancements or stand- High-Performance
alone services, with no Data Centers
performance penalty.
Connect data centers at
up to 10 Gbps for storage
networking, data center
consolidation, and
backup/recovery.
Offer secure, managed IP
VPN services to extend the
reach of private corporate
networks.
Massive processing throughput and
transport bandwidth now make it
feasible to store primary and dupli-
cate sets of critical data in multiple
data centers, in real time—to extend
business continuity services, real-
time storage mirroring, and live
backup across service provider
networks.
Sophisticated security and content-
management/delivery components
support managed firewalls, virtual
private networks, hosted applica-
tions, storage services, content
delivery of static and streaming
media, and more—as premium
managed services.
Combine innovations in
connectivity, content
management, and security to
differentiate service offerings.
Cost-effectively deliver
massive content over the Web
for eLearning, Web hosting,
and corporate Webcasts
Migrate enterprise functions
onto the network, turn up
services on demand, extract
new value from existing
investment.
• Optical Ethernet networked data
centers provide LAN-speed, high
availability interconnect service
between data centers for storage
networking, data center consolida-
tion, or backup/recovery.
This proven enterprise LAN tech-
nology is now also the reliable, cost-
effective, and speedy workhorse of
the metropolitan area network—
ideally suited for high-performance
data center applications. With
Optical Ethernet, service providers
can provision data-center connec-
tivity services in 1-Mbps incre-
ments, from 1 Mbps to 1 Gbps and
10 Gbps—running over reliable,
high-speed optical networks.
• Content Delivery Networks
(CDNs) efficiently and cost-effec-
tively deliver massive volumes of
static and streaming-media content
over the Web for enterprise applica-
tions, such as eLearning, Web site
hosting, and corporate Webcasts.
For service providers seeking to
offer content delivery as a managed
service, CDNs offer key advantages.
By pre-positioning content close to
the users likely to request it, CDNs
significantly reduce bandwidth usage
on the wide area network (WAN).
Through caching, load-balancing,
routing optimization, and other
strategies, CDNs increase content
availability and protect against server
overload. By providing a faster and
more reliable access to content, this
solution drives popularity of new
applications.
In short, by empowering the
network to manage, share, and
distribute content more effectively,
CDNs reduce hosting costs while
providing premium-value service.
 High-Performance Data Center-enabled
Managed Services:
• Web hosting Nortel Networks role in building
• Load balancing High-Performance Data Centers:
• Global load balancing
• High-speed switching
• Server monitoring
• Firewalls • Enabling effective disaster
• SSL acceleration recovery
• IP-VPNs • Secure connectivity
• Content delivery/streaming media • Optimizing the data path
• Intrusion detection
• Storage
• Backup/restore

Benefits of High-Performance Data Centers

New service opportunities. Deliver
differentiated services such as high-
quality, high-bandwidth data center
connectivity and managed content
delivery, support end-to-end security
far beyond firewalls, turn up services
and applications on demand, migrate
enterprise functions onto the network,
and extract new value out of existing
investments.
Versatility in applications and
networking. Far from being a
prescribed architecture, the High-
Performance Data Center is the nucleus
for delivering multiple traffic types—
voice, data, video, streaming media—
using multiple routing and security
protocols, over multiple wireless and
wireline transport mechanisms.
Customer value. Your enterprise
customers benefit from higher-quality
bandwidth at lower cost, end-to-end
security for their valuable information
resources, better application responsive-
ness and availability, reduced capital and
operating costs, and new ways to use
the Internet as a strategic tool.
Low-risk, modular service growth.
Service providers can deploy select,
high-performance service vehicles
where they offer the greatest advan-
tage, add complementary services/
components at any point, and reap
new revenues on a schedule that suits
their business case.
Premium security without a perfor-
mance penalty. Usually the trade-off
for more stringent security is the latency
that comes with more processing over-
head. Our unique approaches accelerate
security processing so performance is
not impacted.
High performance and resiliency.
Optical connections between central
data centers and networked storage
centers provide gigabit bandwidth and
‘self-healing’ capabilities—such as
Resilient Packet Rings—which recover
from network issues in less than a
second.
Lower capital and operating costs.
The managed services model for
data center services provides unusual
economy and scalability by sharing
infrastructure among multiple applica-
tions and customers. Operational
costs are further reduced by tight
integration of components, with
central administration.
Support for quality of service (QoS).
Network managers can define multiple
classes of service—high priority for
delay-sensitive applications and lower
priorities for delay-tolerant applica-
tions—along with detailed proof of
performance to support service level
agreements (SLAs).
More effective utilization of network
resources. Intelligent routing and load
balancing make optimal resource allo-
cation decisions, locally or globally,
based on up-to-date knowledge of
network conditions and service expec-
tations. New content delivery strate-
gies, which place frequently used
content closer to users, can reduce
bandwidth requirements by 35 percent
or more.
Carrier-class reliability. Our High-
Performance Data Center components
are designed for the rigors of the
public service provider arena, with
the redundancy and recovery features
required for premium “five-nines”
reliability.
Nortel Networks as your ally
for High-Performance Data Center solutions
Who better to lead the evolution
towards provider-based data center
services than the company that has
been developing the world’s leading
service provider networks for 100
years?
Nortel Networks is uniquely posi-
tioned to provide High-Performance
Data Center solutions for service
providers. Our DWDM (dense wave-
length division multiplexing) optical
transport systems consistently top the
charts—garnering nearly 37 percent
of the market in the third quarter of
2001 (Dell’Oro). Our next-generation
SONET solutions led the market with
more than 48 percent share for the
first three quarters of 2001 (Yankee
Group).
Nortel Networks was first to demon-
strate WAN-compatible 10-Gigabit
Ethernet, first to integrate DWDM
and next-generation computing over
10-Gigabit Ethernet, and first to carry
live video across 6,000 miles of
Optical Ethernet. Our robust Passport
8600 platform captured the #2 spot in
its category with a 17.6 percent market
share in 2001 (Dell’Oro Group).
Nortel Networks Alteon Web
Switches—deployed by more than
5,000 service providers and enter-
prises—has led the fixed market for
four years straight (Dell’Oro). Our
Alteon SSL security platform captured
61 percent of its worldwide market
in 2001, according to Infonetics. Our
Contivity VPN platforms have been
the #1 choice of service providers and
enterprises for several years in a row
(Synergy Research Group) and were
recognized by Information Security
magazine as a 2002 Information
Security Excellence award winner.
Service providers and enterprises in
45 countries have already deployed
solutions based on our High-
Performance Data Center portfolio.
For more information, visit our Web
site at: www.nortelnetworks.com/hpdc
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