Ethernet: The High Bandwidth Low-Latency Data Center Switching Fabric
January 12th, 2009
By Force10 Networks
The transition to 10 GbE is under way in the data center, and the ubiquity and reliability of ethernet make it a desirable solution for delivering a high performance data center network, storage and compute fabric. Ethernet technology has reached a maturity and is a compelling proposition. The mass-market availability of 10 GbE adapters and switches enables ethernet-based networks to deliver high bandwidth, high throughput and low latency solutions for the rigorous demands of data center applications.
Find out how best to use 10GbE in your data center by downloading this white paper.
Enterprise networks, especially branch office networks, have experienced a level of service integration over the past five years that has delivered lower acquisition and operational cost while increasing the number of services available to branch office employees. Branch office routers now include switching, WLANs, PoE, network security, WAN optimization, VPN, unified communications and advanced routing which increase application performance over thin wide area network links. In this podcast we explain the next generation of branch office optimization, which is the integration of applications into the network fabric. The networking industry has started to open up its software in the form of SDKs and APIs. Cisco, Juniper, Extreme, 3Com and the open source routing initiatives are all allowing developers to write to defined router software interfaces. The concepts here are based upon research contained within an industry paper available for 
Zeus Kerravala of The Yankee Group and I make our annual IT predictions. This year we make ten predictions ranging from data center/cloud/virtualization, green IT, the fate of UC, the new IT organization design to which firms will be gone by the end of the year. Enjoy, Nick
