The Lippis Report

November 15th, 2010

Move a Virtual Machine (VM) from one physical server to another, and network port profile, VLANs, security settings, etc., have to be reconfigured. Many networking companies haven’t taken the critical step of giving complete visibility and control of the VM lifecycle from an infrastructure perspective. But with XNV, Extreme Networks is bringing this functionality and visibility to network administrators, tracking VMs and applying policy as they move throughout the network. Shehzad Merchant, Senior Director for Strategy at Extreme Networks, joins me for a discussion about Extreme’s approach to network automation and visibility of virtualized infrastructure through its XNV software module.

August 24th, 2010

By Extreme Networks

A typical “non-virtualized” data center has three network layers, Top-of-Rack, End-of-Row and Core switches. But virtualized infrastructure adds two additional layers; the virtual switch and blade switch, raising the number of tiers from 3 to 5. This significantly increases latency plus the number of network elements within the data center resulting in increased data center management complexity.

Extreme Networks® Direct AttachTM eliminates the virtual switch layer, simplifying the network and improving performance. Extreme Networks high density BlackDiamond® 8800 series switches with 8900-series modules further enable data center simplification by utilizing high density blades and cabling to eliminate the blade switch, thereby reducing the number of tiers in the data center from 5 to 3.

Find out how by downloading this white paper:

July 1st, 2010

By Nick Lippis, the Lippis Report

A number of independent trends are driving a new age of massively scalable data centers. One of these trends include a new IT delivery model based upon cloud computing, where large hosting facilities provide a range of IT services to corporations and governments. Further, high performance computing (HPC) facilities built via server clusters on the order of thousands to tens of thousands of servers and more has ushered in new favorable economics, thanks to its use of x86 commodity hardware. The growth of public hosting and HPC facilities will only continue as efficient data center economics point to a fewer number of highly dense sites. It is this data center market segment, where the number of servers per facility is greater than 5,000, that we focus this white paper from a perspective of fabric, connecting servers and storage to internet/intranet via high performance Ethernet networking. For IT architects and designers of high-end data centers, this is the most important network design paper you will read this year.

Download this white paper now

May 17th, 2010

By Arista Networks

Extensibility is a system design principle where the implementation of the operating system takes into consideration future growth. It is a systemic measure of the ability to extend the operating system and the level of effort required to implement the extension. Extensions can involve the addition of new functionality or the modification of existing functionality.

Find out how Arista’s Network Operating System EoS improves system uptime and delivers rapid service restoration in the event of failure by downloading this whitepaper.

May 17th, 2010

By Cisco Systems

Virtualization is rapidly becoming an essential tool for more fully harnessing and managing the power of today’s data center servers. In only a few years, standard x86 server technology has increased in performance and density so that today, multisocket, quad-core systems with 32 or more gigabytes of memory, are the norm. The combination of multicore computing and virtualization software such as VMware Virtual Infrastructure has enabled IT departments to bring server sprawl under control by running multiple independent workloads on a smaller number of servers. Today, fewer servers are required to do the same work, and their utilization levels have increased — both factors that contribute to greater energy efficiency and lower power and cooling costs.

As IT departments have discovered the benefits of server consolidation, they have also found that virtualization solves an even broader set of problems. Business continuity plans based on virtualization can make disaster-recovery solutions simple, reliable, and more cost effective. Virtual desktop environments can use centralized servers and thin clients to support large numbers of users with standard PC configurations that help to lower both capital and operating costs. Virtualization allows development, test, and production environments to coexist on the same servers, and it helps decouple application deployment from server purchasing decisions. New applications can be deployed in virtual environments and scaled on demand to accommodate the evolving needs of
the business.

May 3rd, 2010

By Arista Networks

Can Ethernet compete with Infiniband in the low-latency trading and high performance computing markets? Administrators and IT professionals face a choice when deciding whether to invest in Infiniband or Ethernet for their low-latency networks. This paper addresses many of the characteristics of Infiniband that have made their way into Ethernet.

To learn more, download the Arista Networks whitepaper.

May 3rd, 2010

Our industry is in a compute innovation cycle thanks to virtualization and cloud computing and it’s changing fundamental networking requirements and design. These changes are beyond increased packet processing performance and ultra low latency. They extend to network design and product features that enable increased server virtualization scale, workload mobility and cloud computing. I discuss a new model for networking born out of data center virtualization and cloud computing with Doug Gourlay, Vice President Marketing at Arista Networks. This is Arista Networks’ first podcast; sure to be a classic.

Enjoy, Nick

April 19th, 2010

By Voltaire

This paper describes the challenges inherent in existing Ethernet solutions and how Voltaire’s new scale-out Ethernet architecture effectively addresses those challenges. Voltaire’s InfiniBand products and fabric management solutions have been addressing Data center architecture changes for years. Today, Voltaire delivers the fabric for the world’s largest supercomputers, the world’s fastest financial trading platforms, and the world’s most scalable database machines. Soon, Voltaire will extend its product offering to include Converged Enhanced Ethernet CEE switches and software, allowing end users with less demanding performance requirements to benefit from a far more scalable Ethernet fabric that also lowers overall fabric costs, lowers power consumption, has greater efficiencies, and simplifies management.

Find out how by downloading this white paper.

April 19th, 2010

Networks today require predictable performance and are much more aware of application flows than traditional networks with static addressing of devices. Enterprise networks in the past were designed for specific applications while new cloud designs in the data center can address a multitude of applications. This is clearly a radical departure from today’s oversubscribed networks in which delays and high transit latency are inherent.

To learn more, download the Arista Networks whitepaper.

April 19th, 2010

Arista’s new 7500 Series of Ethernet switches is touted as the fastest Ethernet switch on the planet. Arista Networks has been delivering ultra high performance fixed 1/10 Gb Ethernet switches for high performance computing and cloud computing data centers. But this week Arista shocked the industry by introducing a massively powerful Ethernet switch platform that is 10 GbE port dense, compact, cloud spec fast, amazingly green plus smart and prepared for 40 and 100GbE with a price tag 50% below competitive offerings. I talk with Douglas Gourlay, Vice President Marketing and Anshul Sadana Vice President, Customer & Systems Engineering both from Arista Networks about a new age of network design in the cloud-computing era.

April 13th, 2010

Power over Ethernet (PoE) powers IT endpoints like IP phones and WLAN Access points. But newer devices like IP video phones, IP surveillance cameras, thin client display, next Generation IP phones, 802.11n WLAN access points and Pan Tilt Zoom (PTZ) Surveillance cameras require more than 15W of power so the IEEE recently standardized a new 30W PoE standard called PoE Plus. Soon most, if not all, corporations will have a mix of end points that require old PoE and new PoE plus power. IT leaders can meet these requirements by leveraging the enhanced PoE and PoE Plus features offered by Cisco’s Catalyst 4500 E-Series product line. Moreover Cisco has announced two new Catalyst 4500 Series Line Cards with readiness for PoE Plus and inline power up to 30W per port. I talk with Sachin Gupta, Director and Product Manager at Cisco Systems about these new PoE design features and what new options are available to IT architects as they build out corporate collaborative solutions.

April 5th, 2010

By Arista Networks

What is Arista’s definition of scalability of a data center network? What are the critical requirements and what issues must be solved to address data center scalability? Scalability of the data center network is the ability for network technologies to accept increased traffic or new devices without impacting the contribution margin. In this white paper Arista Networks discuses network design best practices for scaling up Data Center Networks.

Find out how by downloading this paper.

March 17th, 2010

In addition to desktop connectivity wiring closet switches now connect wireless access points, laptops, kiosks, netbooks, IP phones, printers, video desktop systems and more while also managing electrical power of the devices they connect. New PoE Plus standard 802.3at allow 30W per port to be delivered which has driven a change in wiring closet power management. I talk with Berna Devrim, Sr. Manager, Access Switching Marketing at Cisco Systems about the dynamics forcing a change in wiring closet switching and the new Cisco X and S series of edge switching products which represent progressive thinking in this space. Enjoy, Nick.

January 11th, 2010

By Cisco Systems

Cisco IT is transforming its data centers with solutions that help to realize the company’s Data Center 3.0 vision, which employs a unified network fabric to connect servers and storage devices in a way that is resilient, scalable, and easy to manage. The transformation occurs in three stages: 1) Consolidating I/O and increasing throughput by implementing unified I/O running on 10 Gigabit Ethernet (current stage); 2) Increasing the power available to compute resources by reducing the power consumed by the network infrastructure and; 3) Making applications location-independent, which will simplify changes and possibly eliminate the need for change requests

Learn how Cisco is deploying consolidated I/O in their data center by downloading this paper.