Three Must-Have Capabilities for Your Campus Network in the Wi-Fi 6 Era

As the number of devices continues to explode, the demand for data rises exponentially, with data hungry devices placing unforeseen demands on campus network infrastructure. Network performance, agility, security, and reliability have never been more important. In fact the potent combination of Wi-Fi 6 and 5G raises the bar on campus network infrastructure in this new digital economy. With Wi-Fi 6 and 5G, edge computing becomes a reality. Cloud Native Functionality (CNF) and Intent-Driven Networks (IDNs) form the basis of the new digital economy that will drive the future of enterprise campus networks in the coming years as the basis for digital transformation. Campus networks are moving into the era of being experience-centric as opposed to being just user- or device-centric, leading to more business oriented service-centric architecture.

Capability 1: 100 GE will be the new norm across your campus network.

10 GE access, 100 GE high-density core, and scaling up to 60 Tbit/s facilitates the migration of applications to the cloud and paves the way for building cloud native applications in the gigabit wireless Wi-Fi 6 era. The convergence of wired, Wi-Fi, and Internet of Things (IoT) on a single network helps to unify both fabric and policy on the same network, thus leading the way for converged authentication and management. Financial and business applications demand lossless architecture with zero packet loss in a high load environment. In this new digital economy, cloud is moving to the edge as a new computing platform. It is predicted that more than 75% of enterprise-generated data will be created and processed outside the traditional centralized data center or cloud. Unstructured information can be processed at the edge or handed over to the core for real time data visibility and analytics.

Capability 2: A fully automated network starts from a programmable switch.

With IDNs, automation needs to be inbuilt in campus networks. IDNs help deliver on the promise of self-healing and self-provisioned networks. Automation not only reduces various network issues and outages caused by human error, it also means that the network can run autonomously, with network administrators able to define the level of automation they want in the system. Automation spans the whole spectrum of planning and design, deployment, service provisioning and Operations and Maintenance (O&M). The whole automation architecture needs to be based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). It needs to include not only fault location, but also fault prediction and proactive management of user and application experiences. Business digital transformation mandates that future enterprise network infrastructure provides a one-click diagnosis of network-wide issues. This network programmability and automation will accelerate digitally deterministic enterprises.

Capability 3: Campus and data center networks are getting more similar in terms of stability.

Network infrastructure will start adapting to distributed design including cell switching. Using these unique designs, infrastructure will be able to provide non-blocking services with zero packet loss, using dynamic load balancing. Cell switching technology ensures balanced hash over switching channels regardless of the packet length, thereby ensuring non-blocking data switching. This is especially useful in high concurrency, large capacity, and heavy load environments, achieving Data Center (DC)-level network and service quality. Distributed switching separates the control and forwarding planes, resulting in higher device reliability and smooth upgrade for service-centric architecture.

Summary

The dawn of the Wi-Fi 6 era has redefined enterprise networks and has ushered us into the age of service-centric, digitally aware enterprise. The push for businesses to be more responsive and customer-centric requires more performance and agility from their networks and services. Network is not only mission critical and a competitive weapon for enterprises; the very success of the digital revolution relies on the adoption of automated, secure, all wireless networks that deliver ubiquitous connectivity, unmatched service assurance, and smooth evolution. Digital transformation is a journey and not an end in itself. It requires both enterprises and ecosystem partners commit resources and investment for this new world.