In the old offices of the European Physics Laboratory, which is part of CERN, there is an ordinary office that can no longer be ordinary. The only difference from other rooms is that there is an old book hanging on the door with the words “leave the office temporarily”. And then a signature – Berners-Lee.

This uninteresting office is one of the holy places that Internet people will worship in their lifetime. Not surprisingly, it will become a holy place for all mankind in a few hundred years. Because right here, Berners-Lee invented the first web browser in human history on December 25, 1990, and the World Wide Web was born.

The impact that this has had since then is bound to be felt by everyone today. But Berners-Lee wasn’t the only father of the Internet. When he invented the World Wide Web, he relied primarily on the TCP/IP protocol proposed by Robert Kahn and Winton Cerf in 1973. When IP technology and the genius idea of ​​the World Wide Web converged, human beings waited until the early era of IP network, and also ushered in an information explosion that truly changed everyone’s life and work.

The value of IP networks may not be complimented by any compliment. However, as the spirit of the Internet shows, the only constant is innovation and change. Celebrating its 30th birthday, the IP network that has entered the thirties is also facing another historic upgrade. The internal driving force this time may not be the whimsy of European physicists, but far in the East, from Huawei’s technological exploration and industrial insights.

On May 19, during Huawei’s 17th Global Analyst Conference, Huawei’s “Leading Intelligent IP Networks and Accelerating the Intelligent Transformation of Connections” was held. During the summit, Kevin Hu, President of Huawei’s Data Communication Product Line, said: “2020 is the first year for the commercial use of intelligent IP networks. The development of IP networks has evolved from Internet IP in the World Wide Web era to video-driven All IP. Smart IP networks in the 5G and cloud era. Huawei continues to innovate and actively invest in smart ultra-broadband, smart connections, and smart O&M to build end-to-end smart IP networks for customers.”

From the turbulent history of the information revolution in the past 30 years, we can find that the IP network will experience the characteristics of an industry that changes every 15 years. In Huawei’s view, this historic change node has arrived again, and the core driving force and direction of this IP network transformation is the encounter between IP network and intelligent technology.

The deep integration of intelligent technology and IP network is like a rotating Rubik’s cube, which is turning an era of network iteration, industrial digitization, and the intelligent world.

The Heart of the Rubik’s Cube: When Thirty-Year-Old IP Networks Meet Artificial Intelligence

First, we have to go back to the historical pattern to find out whether the IP network is really undergoing a once-in-15-year iteration.

Looking back at the development history of IP networks, we will find that after the native IP network was born in 1990, a network iteration featuring 100GE* occurred around 2005. For the vast number of Internet users, the biggest feature at that time was the rise of the demand for video transmission over the Internet. Online games, online videos, and video calls began to flourish. The Internet was no longer only a text-transmitting existence; for operators and enterprise networks , the key to this network iteration is the comprehensive IP-based business. The network has begun to integrate and unify, and develop into a new industrial cycle.

Summarizing the reasons for this generational change, it can be found that IP networks have been developing continuously along the three dimensions of bandwidth, protocol, and operation and maintenance. When the bandwidth demand increases to a certain extent, and the related protocols can be greatly simplified, and the operation and maintenance system can be automatically iterated, then the overall iteration of the IP network will come.

With that observation, let’s go back to today in 2020. We can see that today, when 5G and gigabit optical fibers are strongly popularized, enterprise business is fully cloudized, and AI brings crazy rising data transmission and computing demands, the iterative call for IP networks is already very obvious. Specifically, we can examine the generational change that IP networks are experiencing today through several dimensions:

1. From the perspective of carrier and enterprise network bearer models, 5G is bringing a large number of high-bandwidth applications, the full cloudification of enterprises has brought unprecedented challenges to network transmission, and the radical changes brought by AI are constantly testing the upper limit of IP networks.

2. From the perspective of network demand, the broadband demand of diversified users has increased simultaneously. Taking the period of the epidemic as an example, the demand and time spent on the Internet by home users continued to increase; telemedicine, education, and office work became mainstream; the online business of enterprises continued to deepen; and video became the main communication channel between enterprises and individual users.

3. From the perspective of the long-term evolution of the network, the goals of using the network are changing. In the future, the transition from a consumer network to a production network is already very clear. Industrial Internet, energy network, and Internet of Vehicles are about to emerge, so the test of IP network will inevitably lead to iterative growth.

With the opening of the era of technological integration of 5G, cloud, and AI, the collaboration of hundreds of billions of production and office terminals, the need for 100% of enterprise businesses to migrate to the cloud, and the adoption rate of 97% of AI, enterprises face huge challenges in their digital transformation. challenge. As the most important part of an enterprise’s digital transformation, IP networks must be prepared to face challenges. At this time point, in addition to broadband enhancement, further optimization of network protocols and network operation and maintenance must be ensured, so that the ultra-high bandwidth IP network has an industrial foundation for landing. At this time, a crucial technology came to the fore: artificial intelligence.

The intelligent means of IP network mainly based on artificial intelligence can guarantee the network experience in a targeted manner based on the identification and judgment of the specific network usage intention. This is the most effective solution in IP networks with ever-increasing bandwidth, ever-improving product performance, and increasingly complex systems.Therefore, Huawei gave a clear definition to the dominant “IP network 3.0” in the new generational replacement: the IP network in the new cycle is the intelligent IP network.

And this is not just a strategic judgment. In industrial reality, Huawei has made a lot of explorations in the field of data communication. And clearly put forward the three major characteristics of intelligent IP network in industrial reality.

The Vertical Axis Defines Boundaries: Three Characteristics of an Intelligent IP Network

If the intelligent IP network is a Rubik’s cube, the core of the update compared to the previous generation technology system is intelligent technology. Then, on the vertical axis of this cube, Huawei’s analysis and summary of the characteristics of intelligent IP networks are arranged in this way. From the bandwidth core of the IP network to the networking connection, and then to the subsequent operation and maintenance management, the direct and in-depth participation of intelligent technology in every layer of industrial value must ensure that the value of the intelligent IP network is maximized and truly supports The role of network requirements in the era of 5G and AI.

Since intelligent technology needs to be the main technology to make IP network manageable and optimized in a long period, it is necessary to define the basic value and industrial base of intelligent technology in IP network. To this end, Huawei has released the three major characteristics of intelligent IP networks, which are defined by systematic technology to show us the full picture of the value of the intelligent IP network era.

1. Intelligent ultra-broadband: As the basis for IP network iteration, bandwidth is the center of industrial upgrading. Through the transition from 100G to 400G, Wi-Fi 5 to Wi-Fi 6, the intelligent IP network has achieved a substantial upgrade of bandwidth resources, and based on slice bandwidth isolation, the flexible adjustment of bandwidth is realized, so that the intelligent IP network can support the value leap of the production Internet , into the next industrial generation.

2. Intelligent connection: As the most important means of IP network technology optimization, the active identification and optimization of IP network based on artificial intelligence technology is the basis for the future evolution of IP network technology. Huawei believes that the intelligent IP network will be able to identify network service types, infer users’ network intentions, and achieve flexible deployment and real-time resource adjustment of networks that move with the cloud, making intelligence the always-on brain of IP networks and ensuring users’ connection experience. ;

3. Intelligent operation and maintenance: Facing the evolution of IP networks with continuously increasing bandwidth and continuously diversified service bearing types, operation and maintenance management is the biggest challenge. In this area, smart technology will also play a key role. Based on the recognition, judgment and active feedback functions brought by AI technology, the IP network will be able to quickly adjust services through automatic deployment; and based on AI automatic troubleshooting, active operation and maintenance will be realized, ensuring that the network is always in a high-availability state. It can actively identify faults, actively judge the impact of faults and implement plans, and actively repair faults.

The definitions and specifications of the three characteristics are not solely from Huawei’s judgment on the future industry. In fact, before the first year of intelligent IP network commercialization, Huawei had already served a large number of customers through intelligent IP network technology, carried out in-depth industrial practice, and won wide acclaim in the industry. On the nodes that comprehensively promote the systematic commercialization of intelligent IP networks, Huawei has also developed intelligent IP network products and solutions covering three major scenarios.

The horizontal axis covers the industry: three scenarios work together to support IP network intelligence

If the intelligence from bandwidth, connection to operation and maintenance is the vertical iteration of the IP network industry cycle; then the intelligence based on real products and solutions in different business scenarios is the horizontal coverage of IP networks, which completes the intergenerational replacement of real industries. appear. When the intelligent IP network penetrates into the center of each scene, the industry will intuitively see the iterative effects generated in different fields, and build a key fulcrum for the overall process of IP network intelligence.

To this end, Huawei’s innovative intelligent IP network solutions apply “smart ultra-broadband, intelligent connection, and intelligent O&M” to various scenarios. We have seen that Huawei’s intelligent IP network system has achieved in-depth industrial empirical value in the three scenarios of campus network, wide area network, and data center network.

First of all, let’s look at the key to the digital upgrade of enterprises, the intelligent development of the campus network. In the field of campus networks, Huawei AirEngine Wi-Fi 6 exclusively provides 16T16R smart antennas, achieving a single-user performance of 1.6Gbps, which is about 20% higher than the industry’s. AI-based wireless intelligent radio frequency tuning can increase the average terminal downlink rate by 50%. % or more, and the AI-based intelligent operation and maintenance system shortens the mean time to repair (MTTR) from 4 hours to 10 minutes, greatly improving the user experience. This solution has already served scenarios such as the Huawei campus with 194,000 employees and the digital warehouse of SONGMICS Amazon, the largest furniture seller in Germany. The most proud case for Chinese people is Huawei’s smart campus network, which completed the network delivery of Huoshenshan Hospital in 3 days, and played an irreplaceable value during the anti-epidemic period.

In the field of data center networks, Huawei uses the original intelligent and lossless iLossless algorithm to truly achieve zero packet loss in Ethernet, achieving a 27% increase in data computing efficiency and a 30% increase in data storage efficiency compared to the industry. It can sense typical faults in 1 minute, locate in 3 minutes, and repair in 5 minutes. It has been used in large-scale commercial use in the data centers of more than 40 Internet and financial customers such as China Merchants Bank, China CITIC Bank, and the People’s Insurance Company of China. The intelligence of the data center network is the cornerstone of the social economy moving towards intelligence, and plays a key pivotal role in the new infrastructure construction cycle.

In the WAN field, Huawei provides operators with a new intelligent network experience for business diversification and business model changes. 100% bandwidth guarantee is achieved through FlexE slicing, which is 5 times finer than the industry, and the optimal path selection based on business intent through SRv6 ensures that the latency of key services can be guaranteed. These technologies are widely used in China Mobile Smart Grid, Agricultural Bank of China and It has been widely used in scenarios such as Beijing Unicom Daxing Airport, realizing high-quality bearing of key services.

The coverage and application of intelligent IP networks in various scenarios is the beginning and foundation of many digital upgrades and accelerated technological integration. Only the IP network can meet the comprehensive needs of all-cloud business, enterprise digitization, and operator intelligence, and provide a support foundation for technological integration and innovation through the actual updated industrial base. possibility of taking the first step. Returning to the IP network itself, only the deep integration with the network carrying services, network requirements, and industrial digitization can trigger the great changes in the 30-year history of the IP network.

In terms of the occurrence of the information revolution, the IP network is the origin of all stories. For the intelligent era of the Internet of Everything and the intelligent revolution in which the productivity of various industries is fully upgraded, the intelligent IP network built by Huawei may be another origin, a preface. The Rubik’s Cube, called the Intelligent IP Network, keeps turning and can spell out many pictures of the future.