Huawei unveiled a new data centre switch at its network product launch event for Spring 2019. Designed for the AI era, the CloudEngine 16800 comes with embedded AI chip and 48-port 400GE line card per slot, promising to help service providers evolve to autonomous networks.
The CloudEngine 16800 uses the iLossless algorithm to implement auto-sensing and auto-optimization of the traffic model, helping lower latency and increase throughput based on zero packet loss. The CloudEngine 16800 overcomes the computing power limitations caused by packet loss on the traditional Ethernet, increasing the AI computing power from 50 percent to 100 percent and improving the data storage Input/Output Operations Per Second (IOPS) by 30 percent, Huawei said.
The high density of 48-port 400GE line cards per slot will help operators meet the expected 5-fold increase in traffic in the AI era, according to the company. The CloudEngine 16800 comes with an upgraded hardware switching platform, and with its orthogonal architecture, overcomes multiple technical challenges such as high-speed signal transmission, heat dissipation, and power supply. It provides what Huawei claims is the industry’s largest 768-port 400GE switching capacity, equal to five times the industry average.
The AI chip supports devices deployed at the network edge and enables the switch to implement local inference and rapid decision-making in real time. With CloudEngine 16800’s local intelligence and the centralized network analyzer FabricInsight, the distributed AI O&M architecture identifies faults in seconds and automatically locates the faults in minutes, helping to accelerate the advent of autonomous networks.
