DATA CENTER Stories
Telecom Italia Seeks Friends for 5G Revival
Published on: 2019-02-22
A mobile network-sharing deal with Vodafone, and efforts to combine fixed-line forces with state-backed Open Fiber, are at the heart of a turnaround plan by Telecom Italia that highlights the huge cost and revenue challenges it now faces in the Italian market while its shareholders squabble over ...
SDxCentral’s Weekly Roundup — February 22, 2019
Published on: 2019-02-21
Here are the week's strays and stragglers we roped for you: Ethernity Networks launched a field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based virtual private network (VPN) gateway. Splunk withdrew from Russia. The application management company will no longer sell its software and services to companies ...
Oracle, KPMG Cloud Threat Report Finds Confidence and Fear
Published on: 2019-02-21
Thirty-eight percent of security and IT professionals surveyed by Oracle and KPMG identified the ability to detect and react to security incidents in the cloud as their top security challenge. Unauthorized use of cloud services was the second most pressing concern, with 26 percent identifying it ...
Is Hosted UC Really the Way to Go?
Published on: 2019-02-20
Is the hosted UC cloud really the way to go? In a two-word answer, "It depends." I'm writing this post based on my personal experience with hosted UC solutions and presenting a slightly different perspective beyond the hype of the UC cloud.
How managed network services are evolving to simplify the global WAN
Published on: 2019-02-20
Fundamentally, the way that carriers (i.e. telcos) deliver managed network services hasn't changed in decades. The core architecture of this network, known as hub and spoke, consists of branches talking to the data center over a managed network with a separate firewall in the middle.
From tree frogs to traffic management: tackling the new WAN requirements of the IoT
Published on: 2019-02-20
Posted by Arthur Cole on February 20, 2019 Wide area network architectures are rapidly evolving to accommodate the internet of things (IoT), with everything from advanced fiber-based data center interconnects (DCIs) to software-defined WANs (SD-WANs) on the table. But in addition to the ...
Cisco pushes silicon photonics for enterprise, webscale networking
Published on: 2019-02-08
Cisco says it's closed its deal to buy optical-semiconductor firm Luxtera for $660 million bringing it the advanced optical technology customers will need for speed and throughput for future data-center and webscale networks.
Software-defined connectivity planned for colocation data centers
Published on: 2019-02-08
Gartner predicts that by 2025, 80 percent of enterprises will migrate entirely away from their on-premises data centers. Instead they'll follow the current trend of moving workloads to colocation, hosting and the cloud, leading them to shut down their traditional data centers.
What is hyperconvergence?
Published on: 2019-02-07
Hyperconvergence is an IT framework that combines storage, computing and networking into a single system in an effort to reduce data center complexity and increase scalability. Hyperconverged platforms include a hypervisor for virtualized computing, software-defined storage, and virtualized ...
5G: more than just a simple network upgrade
Published on: 2019-02-07
Posted by Arthur Cole on February 07, 2019 5G wireless connectivity is certainly faster and wider than current 4G infrastructure, which gives the impression that it is merely an incremental step in the performance we can expect from our existing services. But this is not entirely the case.
What does 2019 hold for the DCI?
Published on: 2019-01-25
Posted by Arthur Cole on January 25, 2019 The data center interconnect (DCI) is emerging as the next big architectural challenge for network service providers, a result of the enterprise's growing reliance on distributed cloud architectures for increasingly heavy production workloads.
Durham County goes Cisco for enterprise network ops and security proficiency
Published on: 2019-01-23
The government in Durham County, N.C., was spending hours and hours manually provisioning its network and keeping security policies current, so it decided two and a half years ago to upgrade for the sake of efficiency and security.
2019: Look for improvements to software-defined data-center networks
Published on: 2018-12-10
To help IT pros attain top performance for their software-defined data-center networks (SDDCN), we have identified 10 crucial technology areas to watch and evaluate during 2019. SDDCN performance requires advanced network software to provision, manage and secure high-speed traffic flows, and ...
How to buy SD-WAN technology: Key questions to consider when selecting a supplier
Published on: 2018-12-03
Software-defined WAN traffic is exploding, and so is the number of technology providers competing for enterprise SD-WAN customers. Here are some key issues to consider as IT pros investigate SD-WAN deployment options and weigh the importance of features such as application prioritization, ...
How to secure your Azure network
Published on: 2018-10-16
Cloud services like Azure offer a lot of security features straight out of the box, especially if you're using their platform services. But virtual infrastructures are much like physical infrastructures, connecting virtual machines with software-defined virtual networks. Thus, they need the same ...
Achieve Business Harmony and Compliance Through Automated Policy Enforcement
Published on: 2019-02-21
I was doing some compliance research recently and came across the following statistic from the Veritas Truth in Cloud Study: "76% of organizations believe that their cloud service providers take care of all data privacy and compliance regulations." Once I had a chance to collect my jaw from the ...
Move to DNA or ACI?
Published on: 2019-02-21
Relationship of Cisco ONE to DNA and ACI Digital business relies upon a new digital network, in enterprise networking and the data center. This new network requires a software-based and policy-driven approach, automation, built-in security, proactive monitoring and troubleshooting.
Destination Cloud: Start Secure, Stay Secure With the Latest VM-Series Enhancements
Published on: 2019-02-19
The cloud is here to stay. According to Deloitte's 2018 global CIO survey , 90 percent of CIOs and C-suite executives say their organizations are using cloud-based services. The cost and efficiency gains are undeniable. But it's not enough to cross your fingers and hope a security breach doesn't ...
Network Break 222: SnapRoute Launches Network OS; Carbonite Buys Webroot
Published on: 2019-02-18
Podcast: Download | Embed Take a Network Break! The startup SnapRoute has launched CN-NOS, a new network OS that runs Kubernetes under the covers. VMware introduces new features in its SD-WAN appliances, and Carbonite will acquire Webroot for $618.5 million. Russia contemplates mechanisms to ...
Dealing with Performance Brownouts
Published on: 2019-02-07
I've done a couple of application slowness (brownout) troubleshooting sessions recently. This blog is my attempt to condense some observations from both engagements, to share lessons learned. "Condense" might not be the right word, seeing how long this blog got! Troubleshooting with some process ...
Just Say No to Jumbo Frames
Published on: 2019-01-24
How do you feel about jumbo MTU? I seem to periodically get into debates about jumbos. I'm highly allergic to jumbos. Let's examine the facts (as I see them), and then we'll get to the cause of my allergic reaction. TL;DR: jumbo can cause major operational pain for network administrators.
Ways to Automate VXLAN
Published on: 2019-01-10
More and more sites are deploying Cisco Nexus 9K-based fabrics. Basically, if the time has come for datacenter switch refresh, you have two choices: Nexus 7700 etc. with a "classic Nexus" design (core, distribution, Top of Rack, FEX), or Nexus 9K-based fabrics. Fabrics are cool and look like a ...
The Changing Cisco QoS Environment
Published on: 2019-01-03
A few months ago, I wrote about the tradeoffs between using a L3 switch and a router. That blog noted that there are a lot more QoS capabilities on the Cisco routers. L3 switches provide a much more constrained set of QoS features, presumably those suitable for high speed processing in chips.
Will Cisco Viptela continue to be one of the Leaders in SD-WAN ?
Published on: 2018-12-28
In 2017, Cisco completed Viptela acquisition. It is not a surprise for me that Gartner published Cisco as the Leader in WAN Edge Infrastructure in 2018. This is Gartner's famous Magic Quadrant report. I wrote a post for Silverpeak before. Silverpeak is listed in the Leaders category.
Plexxi Recognized on CRN’s Data Center 100 List (again)
Published on: 2018-02-26
It's no secret that the demands on modern data centers are changing and that companies want networks that are agile, flexible, and simple. Plexxi embraces this approach to networking when developing the solutions we provide to our customers and partners. As a result, once again CRN, a brand of ...
Plexxi Recognized on CRN’s Data Center 100 List
Published on: 2018-02-26
NASHUA, N.H., February 26, 2018 - Plexxi, the leader in Hyperconverged Networking (HCN), announced today that CRN, a brand of The Channel Company, has named Plexxi to its 2018 Data Center 100 list. This annual list recognizes technology suppliers that excel at powering, supporting and protecting ...
PlexxiPulse – Plexxi HCN™, The Most Powerful Software-Defined Network, Now Available On Dell
Published on: 2018-02-23
This week, we announced support for Dell Networking Z9100-ON and Dell Networking S4048-ON data center fabric switches. Plexxi HCN™ will give Dell customers the power to scale data center networks flat and cost-effectively while still delivering unrestricted performance for all application ...
Innovation or Iteration
Published on: 2018-02-16
The word "innovation" gets thrown around a lot these days. I wouldn't blame anyone if the word now evokes a gag reflex similar to how we all eventually reacted to "cloud" a few years back. Every product and presentation seemed to be reworked to make it appear it was a "cloud" product.
Nyansa Voyance at NFD18
Published on: 2018-08-16
Disclaimer : I was lucky enough to have been invited to attend Network Field Day 18 this past July in Silicon Valley. This event brings independent thought leaders to a number of IT product vendors to share information and opinions.
An Update for my Adoring Fans
Published on: 2018-06-05
I feel like a teenage girl with a fashion blog who hasn't posted in 6 months and comes back with "I know I haven't posted in a while..." Sigh. It's been right at a year since I actually published a post, so I figured I would give everyone an update.
L3 fabric DC -The underlay Network (BGP) -part2
Published on: 2017-01-17
In the previous post, we laid the foundation of L3 fabric DC In this post we will discuss the underlay network which mainly provide IP reachability plus ECMP capability, here BGP would play a role in your DC next to the 3 other that we discussed one of the previous posts.
L3 fabric DC -The underlay Network -Part1
Published on: 2016-12-07
In the previous posts we have discussed the classic DC designs and the M-LAG solution. In this post we will cover the basic L3 fabric DC, you might never heard of it or you think that's a solution for massive scale DC, yes the massive DC in the world would be running L3 fabric but nowadays more ...