Flexibility Key To Next-Gen Networks
Posted by
Liam Lahey
February 16, 2012
Once companies begin to envision a new data center architecture, that holds the potential to change the overall market dynamic. "It will cause people to look at alternative vendors for example, or it could shift the balance of power between hardware and software in the network," he says. "That hasn't happened before."
According to a recent InformationWeek Analytics report, 71% of survey respondents said they have recently completed a network rearchitecting project, are planning one in the next two years or are in the midst of one, making the latter two groups ripe for a marketing pitch from rival vendors. The same percentage of respondents that are doing or planning a project say they are considering replacing their primary vendor, their secondary vendor or adding another vendor.
Change is occurring incrementally. Organizations are moving to 10 Gbit interfaces between servers and access switches. They're moving to fiber cabling instead of copper and they're clustering switches together to get redundancy.
"They'll require an architecture change, which means looking at the whole data center network fabric," he adds. "We see things on the horizon that we believe will become much more positive, and that is these fabric architectures as well as some of the software-defined network initiatives like OpenFlow.
"Basically, your network has to become as flexible as virtual servers have made servers."
When asked what organizations should focus on both short and long-term as it pertains to this dilemma, Oltsik advises that IT managers must be able to see the big picture.
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