The H3C S7600E-X series switches are core switching products specifically designed and developed by H3C Technologies Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as H3C) for cloud computing data center cores and next-generation metropolitan area network aggregation. Adopting an advanced CLOS multi-level multi-plane switching architecture, they provide continuous bandwidth upgrade capabilities, support large-scale Layer 2 technologies such as TRILL, vertical virtualization, and MDC (one-to-many) technology, support EVB and FCOE, and are fully compatible with 40GE and 100GE Ethernet standards. This product is based on H3C's proprietary Comware V7 operating system and is a virtualization software system with IRF2 (Intelligent Resilient Framework 2, the second-generation intelligent elastic architecture) and IRF3.1 (Intelligent Resilient Framework 3.1, the third-generation intelligent elastic architecture upgrade) technologies as its foundation. It further integrates MPLS VPN, IPv6, application security, application optimization, wireless and other network services, and provides a variety of high-reliability technologies such as uninterrupted forwarding, uninterrupted upgrades, graceful restart, and ring network protection. While improving user productivity, it ensures maximum network uptime, thereby reducing the customer's total cost of ownership (TCO).

1. Advanced system architecture

It adopts the advanced CLOS multi-level multi-plane switching architecture, providing continuous bandwidth upgrade capabilities.

Orthogonal network board design: The S7600E-X service boards and switching network boards adopt a fully orthogonal design (90 degrees). Cross-line card service traffic is directly connected to the switching network board through orthogonal connectors, reducing backplane cabling to zero (greatly avoiding signal attenuation), greatly improving system bandwidth and evolution capabilities, and the overall capacity can be smoothly expanded to hundreds of Tbps.

It supports 40GE and 100GE Ethernet standards, fully meeting the application and future development needs of non-blocking campus networks.

Independent switching network cards, with independent control engine and switching network card hardware, adopt a 5-switching plane design and support 4+1 redundancy of network cards, maximizing equipment reliability and ensuring continuous bandwidth upgrades for subsequent products.

The redundant design of the fan frame and power supply frame can cope with unexpected situations and greatly improve the overall reliability of the equipment.

2. Innovative distributed multi-engine design

The S7600E-X adopts an innovative hardware design, providing the system with powerful control capabilities and millisecond-level high reliability through a fully distributed independent control engine, detection engine, and maintenance engine.

The distributed control engine provides a powerful control processing system for all business boards, easily handling various protocol messages and control messages, and supporting fine-grained control of protocol messages, providing the system with a complete ability to resist protocol message attacks.

The distributed detection engine enables all service boards to perform distributed BFD, OAM and other fast fault detection, and links with the control plane protocol to support fast protection switching and fast convergence. It can achieve millisecond-level fault detection to ensure uninterrupted service.

The distributed maintenance engine and intelligent CPU system support intelligent power management, enabling sequential power-on and power-off of individual boards (reducing power surges caused by simultaneous power-on of individual boards, improving equipment lifespan, reducing electromagnetic radiation, and lowering system power consumption), and online device status checks.

3. IRF2 (Second Generation Intelligent Resilient Architecture - Horizontal Virtualization)

Addressing the need for horizontal business integration in campus networks, the S7600E-X supports IRF2 (Intelligent Resilient Architecture 2) technology, virtualizing multiple high-end devices into a single logical device. It is H3C's core switch product, professionally supporting 4-frame virtualization, and boasts significant advantages in reliability, distribution, and manageability, primarily in three aspects:

Reliability: Through hot backup routing technology, redundant backup of all information in the control plane and data plane and uninterrupted three-layer forwarding are achieved throughout the virtual architecture, which greatly enhances the reliability and performance of the virtual architecture, eliminates single points of failure, and avoids business interruption.

Distributed nature: Through distributed cross-device link aggregation technology, load sharing and mutual backup of multiple uplinks are achieved, thereby improving the redundancy of the entire network architecture and the utilization rate of link resources.

Ease of management: The entire resilient architecture uses a single IP address for management, simplifying network device management, simplifying network topology management, improving operational efficiency, and reducing maintenance costs.

IRF3.1: (Third-generation intelligent elastic architecture upgrade - vertical virtualization)

The S7600E-X series products support heterogeneous virtualization in the vertical dimension, forming a vertical logical virtual device by integrating core and access devices through IRF3.1 technology. This supports unified management and configuration of AC and AP, essentially adding a box-type device as a remote interface board to the main device system to expand I/O port capabilities and achieve centralized control and management. IRF3.1 technology simplifies management, significantly reducing network management nodes; simplifies cabling, reducing Layer 2 to Layer 1 and saving horizontal connection cables; and ultimately achieves data forwarding plane virtualization, facilitating simplified service deployment and automatic orchestration.

4. Data center virtualization and network convergence technologies

As a core device for enterprise-level cloud computing data centers, the S7600E-X provides a range of technical solutions for cloud computing data center virtualization and network convergence:

TRILL：

As server and switch scale increases, data center networks are increasingly favoring flatter network architectures for easier maintenance and management. This necessitates the construction of large Layer 2 networks. The S7600E-X supports the construction of large Layer 2 data center networks using TRILL technology. TRILL (Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links) protocol, a large Layer 2 technology for data centers, organically combines the simplicity and flexibility of Layer 2 with the stability, scalability, and high performance of Layer 3. It can provide higher port density and a flatter network architecture to meet the access needs of large-scale servers in data centers.

EVI (Ethernet Virtual Interconnection) technology

EVI is an advanced "MAC in IP" technology. EVI solutions are very easy to deploy, providing flexible Layer 2 interconnection capabilities to distributed physical sites based on existing IP networks. EVI solutions are simple to deploy, compatible with existing user networks, and protect user investment.

VXLAN (Virtual eXtensible LAN)

VXLAN is a Layer 2 VPN technology based on IP networks and using "MAC in UDP" encapsulation. VXLAN can provide Layer 2 interconnection for distributed physical sites based on existing service provider or enterprise IP networks, and can provide service isolation for different tenants.

EVB (Edge Virtual Bridging)

By using VEPA (Virtual Ethernet Port Aggregator) technology to upload network traffic generated by virtual machines to the physical switch connected to the server for processing, not only is traffic forwarding between virtual machines achieved, but problems such as virtual machine traffic monitoring and access control policy deployment are also solved.

FCoE (Fibre Channel over Ethernet) protocol.

FCoE technology is primarily used to address the heterogeneous integration of LAN and storage networks in cloud computing data centers. By deploying FCoE and CEE (Converged Enhanced Ethernet) technologies, the front-end and back-end network architectures of data centers can be integrated, resolving the technical challenge of the separation of data, computing, and storage networks, thereby significantly reducing the procurement and expansion costs of data centers.

5. Highly available M-LAG architecture

The S7600E-X series switches support M-LAG (Multichassis Link Aggregation Group) cross-device link aggregation technology (formerly DRNI technology). This technology virtualizes two physical devices into one device at the forwarding layer to achieve cross-device link aggregation, maintains independence at the control layer, enables dual-active access for devices, provides device-level redundancy protection and traffic load balancing, and improves system reliability.

6. Multi-service integration based on open architecture

The S7600E-X series adheres to H3C's open architecture design philosophy—Open Application Architecture (OAA). It redefines the simple L2 to L3 packet forwarding function of traditional campus network core switches as a multi-service bearer platform that integrates deep service awareness from L2 to L7, wired and wireless integration, active and passive integration, IPv4/IPv6 integration, network traffic analysis and management, and other services.

The S7600E-X series supports security control modules such as firewall modules, IPS modules, and load balancers, extending security protection functions to every port of the switch. It also supports virtual firewall functionality, providing leased network firewall services for VPN users. This achieves seamless integration of network and security services.

The S7600E-X series supports a future-oriented open service platform, integrating third-party software through the switch to bring stronger service convergence capabilities to the switch.

7. New generation of wired and wireless integrated solution

The S7600E-X series switches support next-generation wired and wireless integrated solutions. The switches natively support converged AC functionality, enabling direct management of wireless access points (APs), offering greater flexibility and simplicity in deployment compared to standalone wireless AC card solutions. The S7600E-X series switches also support high-capacity professional wireless AC card solutions, which can be seamlessly integrated with the switch's converged AC functionality to form a unique hierarchical AC solution. This addresses the complex management challenges in large-scale wireless deployment environments, making wired and wireless integrated solutions more flexible and convenient.

The integrated AC is a native feature of the switch, and it also supports combination with virtualization technologies such as IRF2/IRF3.1, enabling a single device to manage all wired and wireless devices in the network, greatly simplifying network operation and maintenance complexity.

8. Comprehensive IPv6 solution

The S7600E-X series switches fully support the IPv6 protocol family, including IPv6 static routing, RIPng, OSPFv3, IS-ISv6, BGP4+, and other IPv6 routing protocols. They also support a wide range of IPv4 to IPv6 transition technologies, such as IPv6 manual tunneling, 6to4 tunneling, ISATAP tunneling, GRE tunneling, and IPv4-compatible auto-configuration tunneling, ensuring a smooth transition from IPv4 to IPv6.

9. Hardware-level encryption technology

The S7600E-X supports hardware-level encryption technology Macsec (802.1ae), which differs from traditional end-to-end application-layer protection software encryption technologies.PassCryptographic techniques for authenticating data sources protect control protocols that manage bridged networks and other data, safeguarding information integrity and providing re-protection and confidentiality services. By authenticating frames sent from this station, the source can be traced...Upper Protection Layer 2 ProtocolThe attack received.

Network topology

Network Application 1:IDC Solutions

The H3C S7600E-X series core switches support up to 200 100GE QSFP28 optical interfaces, 320 40GE QSFP+ optical interfaces, or 480 10 Gigabit SFP+ optical interfaces per unit, meeting the performance requirements of data centers (IDCs) for core equipment. They support virtualization technologies such as IRF2, TRILL, IRF3.1, and MDC, enabling large-scale network deployments.

Network Application 2: Applications in the Aggregation Layer of Broadband Metropolitan Area Networks

In a broadband metropolitan area network (MAN) topology diagram, the S7600E-X routing switch acts as an aggregation layer device, connecting upstream to the backbone router via 10GE ports and downstream to DSLAMs or Layer 2/3 devices at the community exit via GE ports. A ring network scheme is typically used to ensure service reliability.

Leveraging the powerful MPLS VPN capabilities of the S7600E-X, this solution provides multi-service transport based on VPLS and MPLS L3 VPN, enabling differentiated quality of service assurance for individual broadband users, voice services, IPTV services, enterprise leased line services, enterprise private network services, and virtual operator services.

Figure 1. Schematic diagram of the application of S7600E-X routing switch in metropolitan area network.