Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1219491
April/May/June 2020 I 23 In terms of the number of companies or data centers, the hyperscale category is the smallest of the three catego- ries. By most accounts, there are currently less than 1,000 of them in the world. However, in terms of the number of connections, it is the largest category. A hyperscale data center has a massive amount of connections to intercon- nect a massive number of servers. Its form and function are more akin to an enormous CPU than to a traditional data center. In a hyperscale data center, there is only one company using the facility, so unlike the cloud data center, there is no need for flexible interconnection options. All of the connections are engineered before the facility is commissioned, so maintenance activity is minimized. As such, the need for cross connections is almost eliminated. Another result of dedicated ownership is design uniqueness. With many of the constraints removed, The hyperscale data center is a purpose-built facility. The key issues for most of these customers include: • Maximize performance to match the desired architecture • Ease of installation to minimize the time needed to connect • Low latency due to the number of simultaneous connections that are made (e.g., equal-cost multi-path or ECMP routing that can substantially increase bandwidth by load balancing traffic over multiple paths) HYPERSCALE network architects can work to efficiently design the inner workings of their data centers without worrying about potential compatibility issues. While there are some common features of many hyperscale data centers, there are also wide disparities. For example, while many facilities have moved to a singlemode-based infrastruc- ture, there are also many that have remained with multi- mode. The design differences have led to different econo- mies of scale. In fact, the hyperscale data center is often a collec- tion of individual data connections. Individual sets of connections can be created in a physically isolated space or pod. Then another set of connections are needed to interconnect the pods. Each tier of connections brings its own set of requirements depending on the physical structure of the data center. This has led to some unique panel/connectivity locations to provide complete mesh interconnections between tiers. bicsi.org/rcdd DESIGN AN EXCEPTIONAL INTELLIGENT BUILDING. RELY ON AN EXCEPTIONALLY SKILLED BICSI RCDD. ® Criteria Transmission Data Rate Installation Latency Density Maintenance Migration RATING Relative Importance Key High Medium Low