The Lippis Report

April 8th, 2013

The Arista 7150S-24 SFP Data Center Switch is the fastest Top of Rack Switch we have ever tested in this series of public test. Find out just how fast the 7150S-24 can forward packets in your network by reviewing the latest public test information.

February 4th, 2013

By Avaya

Supporting mission-critical applications requires 24×365 always-on infrastructure, and the Avaya Virtual Services Platform 7000 delivers against this challenge. It is a highly strategic product that is fit-for-purpose for today’s connectivity requirements and future-ready for the evolving and emerging application-driven needs of tomorrow. This paper describes Avaya’s unique distributed ToR approach to lower latency for increasingly dominant east-west traffic flows within data center and cloud computing facilities.

February 4th, 2013

By Cisco Systems

The Cisco® Global Cloud Index is an ongoing effort to forecast the growth of global data center and cloud-based IP traffic. The forecast includes trends associated with data center virtualization and cloud computing. This document presents the details of the study and the methodology behind it. Great forecast and projections are detailed in this report.

January 28th, 2013

Dr.Casimer DeCasatis

This is the forth of a five part podcast series on IBM’s Open Data Center Interoperable Network or ODIN program and DOVE or Distributed Overlay Virtual Ethernet. I talk with Dr. Casimer DeCasatis, IBM Distinguished Engineer and System Networking’s Chief Technical Officer for strategic alliances about IBM’s Software Defined-Networking or SDN stack and how applications request network services with IBM’s linkage between its Patterns and SDN product set.

Duration 12 minutes and 17 seconds:

Lippis Intro/Analysis @ : 00:10 sec

Question 1 @ 2:27 What are the key architectural components that enable applications to call upon network resource within PureSystems.

Question 2 @ 4:45: What is Patterns and its main function?

Question 3 @ 7:21: How do clients build DOVE networks and DOVE networks build Virtual System pattern?

Question 4 @ 8:58: What network infrastructure needs to be put in place before virtual system patterns can be created and what’s the main business benefit gained?

January 14th, 2013

This is the second of a five part series on IBM’s Open Data Center Interoperable Network or program and its DOVE or Distributed Overlay Virtual Ethernet.  I talk with Renato; IBM Fellow and System Networking Chief Technical Officer about IBM’s approach to virtual network overlays called DOVE.

Duration 16 minutes and 20 seconds:

Lippis Intro/Analysis @ : 00:10 sec

Question 1 @ 2:22: Renato would you like to add anything to my virtual network overlay discussion in the intro that’s unique to IBM?

Question 2 @ 4:46: What is DOVE, a switch, software, etc?

Question 3 @ 7:42: How are IBM’s virtual network overlays created and managed?

Question 4 @ 9:59 How are virtual networks transported over the physical L2/3 network?  Does IBM support hybrid mode?

Question 5 @ 11:59: There are multi-tenant clouds, hybrid clouds and large-scale private clouds or data centers that would benefit from virtual network overlays.  Which use cases does IBM see as virtual network overlays offering the most value today?

Question 6 @ 14:29: How do IT business leaders start to implement IBM’s virtual network overlay?

Register to attend the Open Networking User Group hosted by Fidelity and the Lippis Report on Feb 13^th 2013 in Boston, MA

January 14th, 2013

No matter where an IT architect looks they are confronted with scaling issues and many times one solution creates another problem.  To address increasing VM density many are expanding broadcast domains with flatter 2-tier architectures only to get bogged down in broadcast issues.  To scale virtualized networks the industry offers VXLAN, but that moves L2 scaling into a multicast-scaling problem.  Software-Defined Network and in particular OpenFlow offers a good approach for provisioning and control but introduces flow oriented architecture scaling issues of its own.  I discuss scaling challenge with Shehzad Merchant Chief Technology Officer at Extreme Networks.

Duration: 10:24 minutes

Lippis Intro/Analysis @ : 00:10 sec

Question 1

@ 1:35 sec: Shehzad: Let’s first start with Extreme’s view of 40 and 100GbE.  How is Extreme incorporating it and why?

Question 2 @ 3:50 sec: Forwarding table architecture and size define logical networking scale.  Extreme recently introduced UFT or Unified Forwarding Table.  What is it and how does it work?

Question 3 @ 6:35 sec: Extreme has partnered with Big Switch Networks to address network visualization scale via its Big Tap and Big Virtual Switch.  Can you talk to this solution?

Question 4 @ 8:51 sec: Can you sum up all the initiatives that Extreme has under way to deliver on its Open Fabric architecture for clo

ud-scale networking?

REGISTER FOR THE OPEN NETWORKING USER GROUP HERE:

January 7th, 2013

Dr.Casimer DeCusatis

This is the first of a five part podcast series on IBM’s Open Data Center Interoperable Network or ODIN program and its DOVE or Distributed Overlay Virtual Ethernet initiative.  In this podcast I talk with Dr. Casimer DeCusatis IBM Distinguished Engineer and IBM System Networking’s chief technical officer for strategic alliances about IBM’s expanded approach to data center networking and the gains anticipated by IBM customers.

Duration 10 minutes and 05 seconds:

Lippis Intro/Analysis @ : 00:10 sec

Question 1 @ 2:16: Let’s start with a discussion about Open Data Center Interoperable Network; what is it and what problem(s) does it seek to solve?

Question 2 @ 3:37: What benefits will IT leaders gain as they start an ODIN journey.

Question 3 @ 5:13: Is ODIN an architecture and an approach to networking or a way for IBM to communicate to the market a set of product/service investments it’s making?

Question 4 @ 7:13: How does ODIN prepare a data center or cloud for elastic compute, storage and network provisioning of resource pools that can be rapidly partitioned into desired configuration?

Register to attend the Open Networking User Group hosted by Fidelity and the Lippis Report on Feb 13^th 2013 in Boston, MA

December 5th, 2012

Mark Monday

Mark Monday Vice President, Product Management, Collaboration Platforms and Endpoints at Avaya joins me to discuss virtualized unified communications.  Avaya announced its Aura Virtualized Environment or Avaya Unified Communications on VMware, which are full-featured Avaya Aura core platform and applications installable as VMware virtual appliances.  This affords a range of new deployment opportunities not previously available that promise to accelerate mobility, video and overall business collaboration deployment. We discuss the implications and new options afforded by Aura on top of VMware.

Duration: 13 minutes 17 seconds

Lippis Intro/Analysis @ : 00:10 sec

Question 1 @ 1:52 sec: When you say that Avaya Aura is now virtualized, what does that actually mean, what is virtualized?

Question 2 @ 4:37 sec: While it may be obvious for some; let’s start with a discussion about the motivations to virtualize Avaya Aura.  What’s the key value proposition for customers and partners?

Question 3 @ 8:27 sec: There are new go to market models for partners with Avaya Aura Virtualized Environment, can you describe them and their implications for Avaya’s reach?

Question 4 @ 10:53 sec: How do existing customers take advantage of Avaya Aura Virtualized Environment as well as new prospectus?

Register to attend the Open Networking User Group hosted by Fidelity and the Lippis Report on Feb 13^th 2013 in Boston, MA

December 5th, 2012

by Avaya

Avaya Collaboration Pods are turnkey solutions consisting of virtualized server, storage, networking and management components all fine-tuned to deliver maximum performance of Avaya application solutions over the underlying data center infrastructure. With fully integrated management and support, the solution enables rapid deployment of complex technologies, including virtualized applications and services, storage and networking, while simplifying the task of operating technologies from multiple vendors.

November 26th, 2012

by IBM System Networking

Data centers are undergoing a major transition toward a smarter, more dynamic infrastructure. More flexible IT architectures are emerging to address the demands of current business applications and new areas, such as cloud computing, multitenancy, bring your own device (BYOD), big data, and analytics. As part of the dynamic infrastructure trend, the role of data center networks is also changing. It is causing businesses to re-evaluate their current networks, which were never designed to handle modern workloads and applications. IBM’s Open Data Center Interoperable Network or ODIN addresses many of the key problems faced by modern data networks, including automation, integration, and management. Compared to classical Ethernet architectures, ODIN fabrics have several distinguishing benefits, which are discussed in this white paper.

November 5th, 2012

During mid-September 2012, Arista Networks and Cisco Systems launched what both claimed to be the industry’s lowest latency switches aimed at big data, cloud, Web 2.0 and high frequency trading markets. Both products are Top of Rack (ToR), 10 and 40GbE switches. Arista’s is based upon merchant silicon, while Cisco utilized custom ASIC. Arista’s 7150 Series claims 10 and 40GbE, 350 nanoseconds Layer 2 or 3 forwarding, VXLAN support and what it calls “flexible forwarding.” Cisco’s Nexus 3548 claims 10GbE, 250ns to 190ns Layer 2 or 3 forwarding, and Cisco Algorithm Boost or Algo Boost technology. At 10GbE speeds, a bit is 1/10 of a nanosecond long, so Arista’s 7150 and Cisco’s 3548 switches delay is 3500 and 2500 or 1900 bits, respectively. That is, these products offer processing delays equal to the time it takes a few thousands of bits to traverse a simple metallic or optical wire at 10Gbs! In this Lippis Report, we review Arista’s and Cisco’s new ToR switches and answer the question: what comes after zero latency switching?

Read the rest of this entry »

September 25th, 2012

Create a flattened, converged, virtualized, standards-based network
by IBM System Networking

An open data center with an interoperable network is a flat, converged, virtualized data center network that is based on open industry standards. Instead of under-utilized devices, multi-tier networks, and complex management environments, the modern data center is characterized by highly utilized servers running multiple VMs, flattened, lower latency networks and automated, integrated management tools. New software-defined network approaches (including overlay networks and OpenFlow standards) greatly simplify the implementation of features such as dynamic workload provisioning, load balancing, and redundant paths for high availability and network reconfiguration. Further, high-bandwidth links between virtualized data center resources may extend across multiple data center locations to provide business continuity and backup/recovery of mission-critical data. A highly virtualized data center offers greater resource utilization and lower costs. This new network infrastructure also simplifies management and addresses network issues such as latency, resilience, and multi-tenant support for public and private cloud environments. By taking advantage of IBM’s Open Interoperable Networking (ODIN) design approach, enterprises can design a cost-effective and manageable data center that fully uses the potential of virtualization, and gives customers the flexibility to migrate to federated data centers, in which computing, storage, and net-work resources may be treated as dynamically provisioned resource pools that can be rapidly partitioned into any desired configuration. To learn more about the ODIN, visit: ibm.com/systems/networking/solutions/odin.html

August 27th, 2012

Rakesh Saha, Director of Product Management for Advanced Technologies at IBM System Networking and Samrat Ganguly, Chief Network Architect for NEC’s ProgrammableFlow join me to help us make sense of the fast paced evolution of Software-Defined Networking and predict its future.

Duration: 12 minutes and 26 seconds

Lippis Intro/Analysis @ : 00:10 sec

Question 1 @ 2:19 sec: Rakesh, There are a few approaches to SDN including overlay virtual networks, OpenFlow control of physical and virtual switches plus a hybrid. How do you see these implementations evolving over time?

Question 2 @ 5:10 sec: Samrat, There are a range of protocols to use for the overlay of virtual networks to tunnel through physical L2/3 networks, such as GRE, VXLAN , NVGRE, etc. How will this space evolve?

Question 3 @ 6:34 sec: Rakesh, There’s discussion in the industry about how SDN can be used to configure a converged LAN/SAN fabric. Can you talk to this?

Question 4 @ 7:58 sec: Samrat, there are multiple approaches for SDN controllers, be it in a hypervisor, an appliance, part of a cloud stack, etc. How do you see the role of the controller evolving over time?

Question 5 @ 9:17 sec: Rakesh, How do you see SDN evolving and how does programmable networking fit in?

Question 6 @ 10:52 sec: Samrat, same question. How do you see SDN evolving and how does programmable networking fit in?

July 24th, 2012

by Clabby Analytics

This white paper discusses how Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and OpenFlow are changing the way that networks are being designed, utilized, and managed. According to Clabby Analytics, SDN will radically alter the networking market competitive landscape. Thus, companies need to understand these new technologies to meet rising demand for cloud, big data, analytics and virtualization.