dec network evolution
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8/2/2019 Dec Network Evolution
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d e c e m b e r 2 0 1 1 / v o l . 2 / n 0 . 6
evolution
Network
b u i l d i n g t h e i n f r a s t r u c t u r e t o e n a b l e t h e c h a n g i n g f a c e o f i t
the reality CheCk issueIn this end-of-year issue, we take stock of what we reportedover the year and gauge whether the changes in technology
that we predicted have actually taken place.
Y o u w i
l l m o v e
t o a f l a t
d a t a
c e n t e r
.
8/2/2019 Dec Network Evolution
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8/2/2019 Dec Network Evolution
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network evolution e-zine • december 2011 3
hme
idea lab
are we finally
in the age f the
flat netwrk?
Srt f
Can enterpriSe
wireleSS lanS
replaCe wired
netwrkS?
nt quite
fCoe at the
edge iS here; end-t-end StrategieS
are imminent
why bther with
end-t-end fCoe?
an edge Strategy
wrkS juSt fine
a blog post by rivka gewirtz little
Can yr WLANkeep p with thetablet explsin?
research firm Canalys reports that
the enterprise wireless LAN market
has grown by 35% due to the inux o
wireless-only devices. I could report
this as good news—and it is or the
top fve WLAN vendors: Cisco, Meru,Motorola, HP and Aruba. But or net-
work managers, the numbers should
signal a dierent message: You’d bet-
ter shake a leg i you don’t already have
a plan in place to grow your WLAN to
handle the tablet and smartphone storm.
I your mobility plan is centered
around halting or even limiting the
inux o personal devices on your net-
work, think again. BYOD programs are
imminent. What’s more, i you believe
that the WLAN is a secondary network
built to provide Internet access in com-
mon spaces, it’s time to rethink your
wireless strategy. The same Canalys
report notes that tablet shipments
will grow to more than 113 million in
2015 rom 45 million units in 2011, and
smartphone shipments will increase to
864 million rom 455 million units in
the same period. Once these wireless-
only devices ood the enterprise, the
WLAN will either handle them—or
completely melt down.
But building a mobility program goes
urther than fnding the right mobile
device management tool. It is just as
important to build a secured WLAN
with the capacity to handle bandwidth-hungry applications such as video
and VoIP. As Jared Grifth, CTO o
systems integrator Cinergy explains:
“It’s about protecting mission-critical
applications. That comes down to
good old-ashioned wireless LAN engi-
neering,” he said. “When I build this
network, I have to build it based on the
applications that are going to be on the
network, not or coverage. I you build
a network or coverage and then add
50 devices to it, it slows the network
down, i not crashing it completely.”
What’s your plan? n
rivka gewirtz little is the Senior Site Editor
f tta n ma.
idealabWhere evlving netwrk cncepts cme tgether
8/2/2019 Dec Network Evolution
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network evolution e-zine • december 2011 4
hme
idea lab
are we finally
in the age f the
flat netwrk?
Srt f
Can enterpriSe
wireleSS lanS
replaCe wired
netwrkS?
nt quite
fCoe at the
edge iS here; end-t-end StrategieS
are imminent
why bther with
end-t-end fCoe?
an edge Strategy
wrkS juSt fine
idea lab
a blog post by ivaN pepelNjak
Myth VM mbility
and llw-the-sndata centers
after i made a particu-
larly snarky comment
about an article that
touted inter-data-center
VM mobility as the ulti-
mate tool to reach the
100% availability heavens (this is why
that argument is totally invalid), some-
one asked me why I don’t believe in
workload mobility, disaster avoidance
and ollow-the-sun data centers. I am
positive that some businesses have
the need or all three, but live VM migra-
tion isn’t the right tool or any o them.
Let’s ocus on the most bizarre o
the three ideas: using VM mobility toimplement ollow-the-sun data cen-
ters. The underlying business require-
ments are sound and simple—moving
the servers closer to end users reduces
latency and long-distance bandwidth
requirements. However, you can-
not reach this goal by moving virtual
machines around data centers; you
simply can’t move a running virtual
machine over long-enough distances.
The maximum round-trip latency
supported by vSphere 4.0 is 5 msec.
While the timing requirements have
been relaxed a bit in vSphere 5.0, the
maximum round-trip latency is still 10
msec—way too low to implement the
ollow-the-sun model. Ater all, you
need more than 100 msec to get rom
Central Europe to Ireland, let alone
across the Atlantic.Even i you were able to move a run-
ning VM between continents, you’d
still ace a number o other challenges.
Bridging over such distances is out o
question; most layer-2 protocols (like
ARP) would time out when aced with
round-trip delays measured in hun-
dreds o milliseconds. You might be
able to support the VM mobility with
LISP, but even that approach has a
number o drawbacks until someone
implements LISP within hypervisor sot
switches.
So, is it impossible to implement
ollow-the-sun data centers? O course
not. The Googles o the world solved
the problem more than a decade ago
using DNS-based load balancing (or
anycast) between data centers andlocal load balancing within the data
center. You can also use Amazon’s
EC2 cloud and create elastic resources
based on geographic load distribution.
Both approaches do have one thing in
common: they rely on properly archi-
tected scale-out applications.
In short, i would be nice i some o
the high-level consultants took some
time to check product data sheets and
laws o physics (like the speed o light)
beore selling totally impractical mar-
ketectures, but I don’t expect that to
happen any time soon. n
Ia Pplja, ccie n. 1354, s a 25-a
a f s.
8/2/2019 Dec Network Evolution
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The legacy approach to networking in the data center - stackingswitches as far as the eye can see, will never meet today’s data
center demands.
The solution isn’t about adding another switch, it’s about an
entirely new approach to networking.
To learn more, visit juniper.net/connect
8/2/2019 Dec Network Evolution
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network evolution e-zine • december 2011 6
hme
idea lab
are we finally
in the age f the
flat netwrk?
Srt f
Can enterpriSe
wireleSS lanS
replaCe wired
netwrkS?
nt quite
fCoe at the
edge iS here; end-t-end StrategieS
are imminent
why bther with
end-t-end fCoe?
an edge Strategy
wrkS juSt fine
idea lab
expert adviCe from lisa phifer
Navigating celllar
vs. Wi-Fi
Q: How do we make the cellular vs.
Wi-Fi decision for connecting enterprise
mobile devices?
a: Cellular (3G/4G) data networks are
ideal or on-the-go connectivity over
a wide area. However, we’ve all expe-
rienced weak cellular signal indoors,
which can cause slow or dropped data
connections. Although outdoor Wi-Fi
networks are available in some areas,
most Wi-Fi hotspots are designed to
cover a well-defned indoor space,
such as a hotel, conerence center, air-
port or airplane.
As such, decisions about cellular
vs. Wi-Fi depend frst on location and
mobility. Increasingly, we will connectwireless devices to both network types
and we may even roam automatically
between them. By deault, most smart-
phones preer using Wi-Fi, alling back
to cellular only when Wi-Fi is discon-
nected.
However, employers may want to
exert a wireless connection control
plan. IEEE 802.11u amends the stan-
dard implemented by Wi-Fi clients
to acilitate cellular/hotspot network
roaming. In a nutshell, 11u will let cli-
ents discover Wi-Fi hotspots, learn
about the services they oer, and
transparently authenticate themselves
based on agreements between net-
work operators. User preerences and
IT-confgured policies are expected to
play a role in this.
Although 11u should bring broaderinteroperability and transparency, pol-
icy control over wireless roaming isn’t
new. For years, cellular operators and
roaming Internet providers like iPass
have oered proprietary “connection
managers” that can enorce preerenc-
es and rules, such as auto-launching
a VPN tunnel when connecting to a
hotspot.
Typical corporate network restric-
tions might require an active VPN tun-
nel, a host frewall that blocks every-
thing else (including NetBIOS), and
recently updated anti-malware. I these
criteria are not met, Wi-Fi hotspot
connections may be disallowed, orc-
ing clients onto cellular—even when
doing so is slower or more expensive.
Corporate policies can also be used tocontain cost—or example, preventing
high-bandwidth applications rom con-
necting over cellular or blocking data
when roaming onto a oreign cellular
network.
These are just a ew examples o
corporate network restrictions placed
on wireless clients, based on net-
work type. There are many platorms
through which to defne and enorce
policy. But don’t start with a platorm—
start by defning policies that reect
business needs and risks. n
Lisa Pif s c cp i., a -
s spa s a
aa .
8/2/2019 Dec Network Evolution
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network evolution e-zine • december 2011 7
hme
idea lab
are we finally
in the age f the
flat netwrk?
Srt f
Can enterpriSe
wireleSS lanS
replaCe wired
netwrkS?
nt quite
fCoe at the
edge iS here; end-t-end StrategieS
are imminent
why bther with
end-t-end fCoe?
an edge Strategy
wrkS juSt fine
idea lab
a blog post by shamus mCgilliCuddy
Is it time r RIM
t mve n rmBlackBerry?
sometimes it pays to
move on, no matter how
much you have invested
in something.
This summer Freako-
nomics Radio ran an episode titled
“The upside o quitting,” which poked
holes in the old adage “winners never
quit and quitters never win.” Many
people, the program argued, are unable
to recognize that they have committed
themselves to an endeavor that is ail-
ing. The more “sunk costs” someone
has in such an endeavor, the less likely
he or she is to give up on it. No matter
how hard it might be to admit it, some-times it pays to just walk away and try
something new.
And here we have Research In
Motion (RIM), inventor o the once
mighty BlackBerry, so popular a device
that users dubbed it the “CrackBerry.”
The BlackBerry was THE enterprise
mobility device o the pre-iPhone era.
A reliable platorm or mobile email,
contacts and calendars that oered
mobility managers centralized control
and rock-solid security, the BlackBerry
made RIM a tech superpower.
That era o dominance is over. The
ever-steepening decline o the Black-
Berry, along with recent disasters like
RIM’s global service outage, have a lot
o people writing RIM obituaries. It’s
prompted me to ask mysel: Is it time
or RIM to walk away rom the Black-Berry?
RIM was almost too successul with
the BlackBerry brand. The device is a
household name while no one aside
rom IT managers and tech media
know who RIM is. Mainstream market-
ing o any RIM device is pegged to the
BlackBerry brand, not RIM. RIM is a
BlackBerry company. What else can it
be?
We may fnd out the answer to that
question soon. Android and Apple
iOS devices have destroyed the Black-
Berry’s share o the consumer mobile
device market, and now it’s eating into
RIM’s sweet spot: Enterprise mobility.
Enterprise Management Associates
(EMA) just announced that more than
30% o large enterprises (10,000+
employees) who are current Black-
Berry users plan to migrate to a dier-
ent platorm within the next year. In its
press release, EMA said:
The BlackBerry wasTHE mbile device the pre-iPhneera and it madeResearch In Mtina tech sperpwer.
8/2/2019 Dec Network Evolution
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/dec-network-evolution 8/35Technology Solutions That Fit Right Every Timwww.lilien.com
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8/2/2019 Dec Network Evolution
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/dec-network-evolution 9/35
network evolution e-zine • december 2011 9
hme
idea lab
are we finally
in the age f the
flat netwrk?
Srt f
Can enterpriSe
wireleSS lanS
replaCe wired
netwrkS?
nt quite
fCoe at the
edge iS here; end-t-end StrategieS
are imminent
why bther with
end-t-end fCoe?
an edge Strategy
wrkS juSt fine
idea lab
“This represents a signifcant reduc-
tion rom the platorm’s current domi-
nation o the large enterprise market
space with 52% o mobile device usersin that demographic actively using a
BlackBerry device as part o their job
unction.”
RIM’s mobility architecture remains
sound (despite the recent outage) but
the company has struggled to keep
pace with innovation in the device
market. When Apple upended the
smartphone industry with the iPhone
in 2007, RIM responded with the
BlackBerry Storm, an ill-ated try at a
touchscreen smartphone that ailed to
catch on.
Then Apple’s iPad blew up the
touchscreen tablet market and RIM
responded with the PlayBook, which
enjoyed strong early sales but got
panned by gadget reviewers who said
the sotware wasn’t ully baked. Theyalso questioned RIM’s requirement
that PlayBook users tether the tablet
to a BlackBerry via Bluetooth in order
to access native email and calendar
applications. A nice security eature or
enterprise IT, but ultimately limiting to
users who were already impressed by
the elegance o the iPad and some o
the better Android tablets. Amid news
that retailers were slashing PlayBook
prices in October, gadget bloggers
jumped on speculation by an invest-
ment analyst who suggested RIM had
given up on the device, a rumor that
RIM vehemently denied.
Then came October’s service out-
age which turned 70 million BlackBer-
rys into bricks or several days. This
has been a PR and customer service
disaster, which prompted publicationsto come up with cute headlines like
“RIM’s Outage: Nail in Cofn?” and
“Is Research In Motion the walking
dead?”
It’s clear that the BlackBerry is inserious decline. Does it pay or RIM
to stick it out and keep investing in it?
In a market where Windows Phone
7, Android and Apple iOS are all win-
ning over users, does it make sense
or RIM to evolve the BlackBerry OS
like this? We saw Palm try to do this
with WebOS. That didn’t go so well.
Nokia walked away rom Symbian and
embraced Windows Phone 7. Should
RIM walk away rom BlackBerry?
How would you do that…. give up on
the brand that defnes your company?
At this point, is it the BlackBerry user
experience that RIM can hang its hat
on? Or is it its middleware (BlackBerry
RIM’s mbilityarchitectreremains snd bt
the cmpany hasstrggled t keeppace with innvatinin the device market.
8/2/2019 Dec Network Evolution
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/dec-network-evolution 10/35
network evolution e-zine • december 2011 10
hme
idea lab
are we finally
in the age f the
flat netwrk?
Srt f
Can enterpriSe
wireleSS lanS
replaCe wired
netwrkS?
nt quite
fCoe at the
edge iS here; end-t-end StrategieS
are imminent
why bther with
end-t-end fCoe?
an edge Strategy
wrkS juSt fine
idea lab
top 5 Network iNvestmeNts of 2011w f f s xp s s
x 12 s?
1 Wireless/Wi-Fi networks
2 iP p
3 n aa s a appas
4 LAN and access switching
5 Appa (wAn pa, appa aa & a aa)
Source: “networking PrioritieS Survey,” techtArget, inc., JAnuAry 2011, n=2190 i.t. mAnAgerS
Enterprise Server) and its network
operating centers (NOCs)? Is RIM’s
strength in its devices or its architec-
ture?Last May RIM announced that it
was extending BlackBerry Enterprise
Server support to Android and iOS
devices. Perhaps that’s where RIM’s
uture lies. Incorporate non-BlackBerry
devices into the architecture that won
the hearts and minds o IT managers
everywhere. Build value there. Sink
R&D into that, not the next-generation
BlackBerry. It’s not clear that going in
that direction will be enough. The mar-
ket or a mobility architecture might
not be as large as one or a hot, new
smartphone, but at least it’s a new
direction that might work. It’s just a
question o whether RIM wants to let
go o device that it has so much invest-
ed in. And BlackBerry needn’t give up
on devices, either. Instead, it could
develop Android or Windows devices
that are completely tied into the RIM
architecture? Can RIM do that? Does itwant to?
Sometimes it pays to quit. It doesn’t
have to mean deeat. It can mean that
you’ve decided to fght another battle
that you think you can win. n
Sams MGilli s ns d
f tta n ma gp.
Smetimes itpays t mve n,n matter hw mchy’ve invested in
smething.
8/2/2019 Dec Network Evolution
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/dec-network-evolution 11/35
Move up to MORE
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8/2/2019 Dec Network Evolution
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/dec-network-evolution 12/35
network evolution e-zine • december 2011 12
hme
idea lab
are we finally
in the age f the
flat netwrk?
Srt f
Can enterpriSe
wireleSS lanS
replaCe wired
netwrkS?
nt quite
fCoe at the
edge iS here; end-t-end StrategieS
are imminent
why bther with
end-t-end fCoe?
an edge Strategy
wrkS juSt fine
idea lab
Htspt 2.0 primer
hotspot 2.0 (hs 2.0) was developed by
the Wi-Fi Alliance and the WirelessBroadband Association to enable the
seamless hando o trafc between
cellular and Wi-Fi networks without
requiring additional user sign-on and
authentication. Over the years, various
vendors have developed technology
that automates hotspot log-on, but
these attempts have been ragmented
and are mostly not interoperable.
Hotspot 2.0 relies on the newly
approved IEEE 802.11u protocol to
enable communication between capa-
ble devices and access points (APs)
that allow or automated network dis-
covery, access authorization and provi-
sioning.
An 802.11u-capable mobile device
would locally store operator profles
and network preerence policy. Oncethis device fnds out an 802.11u-capa-
ble AP, it sends a query using Access
Network Query Protocol (ANQP)
seeking inormation about available
operators, roaming partners and EAP
authentication in the hotspot. The
802.11u AP would use Generic Adver-
tisement Service (GAS) to provide
Layer 2 transport o the advertise-
ment protocol rame between a mobile
device and a server in the carrier net-
work. The AP would then relay the
server’s response back to the device,
and i there’s a match, automatically
authenticate and connect the user.
The provisioning process also allows
or Quality o Service mapping, or
mapping between dierentiated ser-
vices code point (DSCP) markers to
over-the-air Layer 2 priority on a per-device basis, acilitating end-to-end
quality o service.
Why should enterprises care about
Hotspot 2.0?
Most enterprises are ocused on
building wireless LANs that can be
optimized to handle a storm o per-
sonal and corporate devices and be
optimized to deliver multiple multime-dia applications, including voice and
video. Yet as enterprises grapple with
handling the mobile device inux, they
are looking or ways to introduce sup-
portive cellular coverage inside the
campus. That would require seamless
roaming between Wi-Fi and 3G or 4G
networks. Additionally, enterprises
would like to extend their campus
Wi-Fi coverage to cellular networks so
that users can leave the ofce while
using an application and not lose con-
nection.
Hotspot 2.0 trials are underway and
Hotspot 2.0 certifcation test beds will
be available in 2012. —r g l
Enterprises arelking t intrdcespprtive celllarcverage inside thecamps.
8/2/2019 Dec Network Evolution
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/dec-network-evolution 14/35
network evolution e-zine • december 2011 14
hme
idea lab
are we finally
in the age f the
flat netwrk?
Srt f
Can enterpriSe
wireleSS lanS
replaCe wired
netwrkS?
nt quite
fCoe at the
edge iS here; end-t-end StrategieS
are imminent
why bther with
end-t-end fCoe?
an edge Strategy
wrkS juSt fine
the reality check issue
the reality CheCk issueit’s easy for the IT press, analysts and even users to get caught up in vendor
marketing hype. We go to conerences and hear phrases like “at networks”
or “network convergence,” and suddenly every analyst report, article, blogand show-oor conversation centers on these topics. Whether they are
worth the discussion gets proven out over time.
Sometimes the buzz represents actual shits in technology, and we are
able to give our readers the basic inormation they need to consider their
next networking investment. Other times things go in a dierent direction.
In this end-o year Network Evolution eZine, we take stock o what we
reported over the year and gauge whether the changes in technology that
we predicted have actually taken place. Specifcally, we look at three o
the hottest topics o the year in networking: the move to a at data centernetwork, the realities o converged storage and data center networking, and
the concept o moving to a unifed wired and wireless network.
The good news is that all o these topics cover important technical chal-
lenges that our readers are still struggling to solve every day. But all o these
topics have also taken slightly dierent twists in their evolutions than we
expected. Here’s what we learned. n
Y o u w i
l l m o v e
t o a f
l a t d a
t a c e n
t e r .
8/2/2019 Dec Network Evolution
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/dec-network-evolution 15/35
network evolution e-zine • december 2011 15
hme
idea lab
are we finally
in the age f the
flat netwrk?
Srt f
Can enterpriSe
wireleSS lanS
replaCe wired
netwrkS?
nt quite
fCoe at the
edge iS here; end-t-end StrategieS
are imminent
why bther with
end-t-end fCoe?
an edge Strategy
wrkS juSt fine
the reality check issue
editor reality check: In the rst quar-
ter o this year, our Network Evolution
eZine reported that enterprises were
poised to deploy fat data center net-
works. Most network equipment ven-
dors were “working toward executing
their proessed visions.” What have weound almost a year later? Vendors are
releasing products, but network engi-
neers interested in the technology ace
lengthy trials and proo-o-concept
processes. For now, it appears that
engineers will take incremental steps
to change their network topologies
and many will only go partially fat.
NetworkiNg veNdors have been talk-
ing at networks ever since vir-
tualization began stretching the
limits o legacy data center network
architecture. Network engineers are
listening, but they have been slow
to ully invest in such wholesale
change.
Conceptually, attening the net-
work means moving away rom
the use o spanning tree and a
three-tier architecture that is opti-
mized or the north-south trafco a client-server data center para-
digm. Experts say that virtualization
demands large Layer 2 domains
with low latency, any-to-any server
connectivity.
This year almost every traditional
networking vendor rolled out at
data center abric strategies.
Despite the 18 months o mar-
keting buzz that preceded these
rollouts, general availability o the
end-to-end architecture rom these
vendors is just now hitting the mar-
ket, and it’s difcult to fnd custom-
ers who have actually bought in. We
asked Cisco, Juniper, Brocade, Dell
are we fiNally iNthe age of the flatNetwork? sort ofMany engineers agree that data center netwrk tplgymst change in rder t spprt virtalizatin, bt it’sging t take a lt testing bere mst jmp int a at
netwrk.by rivka gewirtz little aNd shamus mCgilliCuddy
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network evolution e-zine • december 2011 16
hme
idea lab
are we finally
in the age f the
flat netwrk?
Srt f
Can enterpriSe
wireleSS lanS
replaCe wired
netwrkS?
nt quite
fCoe at the
edge iS here; end-t-end StrategieS
are imminent
why bther with
end-t-end fCoe?
an edge Strategy
wrkS juSt fine
the reality check issue
Force10, Avaya and Alcatel-Lucent
to connect us with customers who
have implemented at data center
networks or who are even trialingthe technology, but only Brocade
was able to produce a reerence
customer by press time.
This is a challenge to the industry
considering that vendors need re-
erence customers to demonstrate
a track record o success and to
convince the majority o data center
network architects to revolutionize
their network topology.
“I hear a lot o people talk about
[at networks], but I haven’t seen
a lot o people doing it,” said Mark
Thiele, executive vice president or
data center technology at Switch, a
Las Vegas-based data center colo-
cation and cloud services company.
“People are nervous about doing
anything to these environments thatmight introduce risk.”
Thiele, who is also ounder and
president o the non-proft data cen-
ter industry community Data Center
Pulse, said he has talked to only two
people who are even in the proo o
concept stage with at networks,
both with Juniper’s QFabric.
He estimated that only 1 to 5%
o companies will have at data
center networks in production next
year, with another 5 to 10% in the
proo o concept stage. The quickest
adoption will come rom companies
that have the most to gain, such as
those that are building large-scale
inrastructure, especially massive
Web-acing companies like social
media sites and online gaming com-
panies.
ArchItectS wILL ALter
ArchItecture A LIttLe bIt
At A tIMe
The slow uptake o at networks
and data center abrics is nothing
more than the normal adoption
cycle, according to Vince Con-
roy, CTO or FusionStorm, a Cisco
channel partner that specializes in
enterprise data center solutions and
managed services. Customers, he
said, will take baby steps to chang-
ing their networking architecture
frst.
FusionStorm has worked with
many clients in deploying the frst
phase o Cisco’s Unifed Fabricarchitecture, which consists o
Nexus 5000 switches aggregating
pods o Cisco’s Unifed Computing
System server chassis.
“Customers are tending to start
more at the access layer. They want
to converge [storage and data] ab-
ric at the access layer today,” Con-
roy said. Adopting large, at Layer 2
domains will be secondary.
FusionStorm has deployed this
technology within its own data cen-
ter. The solution provider is slowly
expanding its use o these technolo-
gies within a larger legacy inra-
structure that includes an aggrega-
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network evolution e-zine • december 2011 18
hme
idea lab
are we finally
in the age f the
flat netwrk?
Srt f
Can enterpriSe
wireleSS lanS
replaCe wired
netwrkS?
nt quite
fCoe at the
edge iS here; end-t-end StrategieS
are imminent
why bther with
end-t-end fCoe?
an edge Strategy
wrkS juSt fine
the reality check issue
tion layer and core consisting o
Cisco’s Catalyst 6500 switches.
The next step or FusionStorm and
or many o its clients is to imple-ment a large, at Layer 2 domain
within the data center network
using Nexus 7000 switches and
technologies such as Cisco’s TRILL-
based FabricPath, he said.
FLAt networkS cALL
For extenSIve teStInG
And new deSIGn SkILLS
Engineers are fnding that imple-
menting network abrics and large
Layer 2 domains requires extensive
planning and testing.
FusionStorm will test several spe-
cifc actors in its evaluation o a
at, Layer 2 network.
“We’re going to be looking or
No.1, manageability and security,because in our particular case, we
need the ability to segment cus-
tomer environments since we’re
doing hosted clouds or custom-
ers. Whether it is ully dedicated
or multi-tenant clouds, we need to
have a certain level o security that
we can demonstrate to our custom-
ers,” said Conroy. “We’re also look-
ing or the ability to do automated
provisioning.”
Over the past several months,
Aamir Lakhani, a network architect
with a large consulting frm, has
been helping his clients—including
several global fnancial frms, gov-
ernment agencies, ISPs and large
media companies—test out QFab-
ric.
“Some have expanded out theirproo o concept because they want
to do their due diligence with other
vendors that are coming out with
[at networks]. Cisco [or example]
just announced the new Nexus
3000s and changes to FabricPath,
which enables large, at networks.”But they also realize that a at
network isn’t a product that you can
simply drop into a data center and
hit the “on” switch. Network engi-
neers have a lot o work to do, and
need a lot o help beore they can
put these new architectures into
production, Lakhani said.
“They’re buying into it, and they
might be buying the products that
are labeled at networks, but they
lack the knowledge o how to archi-
tect it and design it rom the ground
up. You can’t just buy QFabric or
FabricPath and have a at network.
It takes a lot o up-ront planning.
Engineers are fnd-ing that implementing
netwrk abrics andlarge Layer 2 dmainsreqires extensiveplanning and testing.
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network evolution e-zine • december 2011 19
hme
idea lab
are we finally
in the age f the
flat netwrk?
Srt f
Can enterpriSe
wireleSS lanS
replaCe wired
netwrkS?
nt quite
fCoe at the
edge iS here; end-t-end StrategieS
are imminent
why bther with
end-t-end fCoe?
an edge Strategy
wrkS juSt fine
the reality check issue
With some large data centers, it
takes 30 to 90 days o planning—
architecture and design work—to
make sure these data centers willsupport a at network.”
Lakhani’s clients are testing
QFabric or the quality o its core
sotware and manageability. QFab-
ric promises customers the ability to
manage hundreds o discrete devic-
es as a single logical entity. Many o
Lakhani’s customers doubted that
this was possible, so they’re push-
ing the management capabilities o
QFabric hard.
“More importantly, they want to
make sure [QFabric] is not dropping
packets,” Lakhani said. Overall, he
estimates that his customers who
are trialing QFabric are seeing a
20% increase in perormance over
legacy architecture rom Juniper,
Cisco and other vendors.
the SeMI-FLAt network
IS More oF A reALIty
Flemish media company De Pers-
groep has opted or a semi-at—or
two-tiered network—as opposed to
going completely at, a course that
most customers will ollow in the
beginning.
Through mergers and acquisi-
tions, De Persgroep quadrupled in
size over the last fve years, and
the swelling numbers o users and
applications ar surpassed the
capacity and available ports on its
Cisco-based data center LAN. That
led Wim Vanhoo , the company’s
inrastructure manager, to seek net-
work alternatives that would bring10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) through-
out the data center and enable
Layer 2 networking across the com-
pany’s two data centers. Vanhoo
opted to use Brocade’s VDX switch-
es and abric technology.
The company replaced its tradi-
tional distributed network with a
top-o-rack design that could more
easily work into a data center abric
and eliminate one layer o the net-
work topology.
“With a top-o-rack topology,
we have servers in each rack, and
instead o a patch panel, you have
only two cables rom each switch to
your central switch” said Vanhoo.
That brought 10 GbE into each rack,
he said, and with each server havingtwo switch connections in the rack,
it also introduced high availability
redundancy.
Vanhoo’s top-o-rack confgu-
ration consists o Brocade VDX
switches that use sel-discovery and
sel-confguration to fnd each other
and orm a abric or virtual chassis
that tie directly into the aggregation
layer. That eliminates the distribu-
tion layer, in what Vanhoo calls a
mixture o at network and span-
ning tree design. Yet getting rid o
even one layer o the network had
two very notable outcomes:
“With a at network, there are
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network evolution e-zine • december 2011 20
hme
idea lab
are we finally
in the age f the
flat netwrk?
Srt f
Can enterpriSe
wireleSS lanS
replaCe wired
netwrkS?
nt quite
fCoe at the
edge iS here; end-t-end StrategieS
are imminent
why bther with
end-t-end fCoe?
an edge Strategy
wrkS juSt fine
the reality check issue
multiple channels [o connectivity]
so the load is spread,” said Vanhoo,
explaining why there is now more
capacity and better perormance.In addition, Vanhoo can now
push trafc rom these enmeshed
switches directly into Layer 2, net-
working between racks and even
between De Persgroep’s two data
centers.
“Beore everything had to go
across Layer 3, but now that it goes
across Layer 2, it’s very ast,” said
Vanhoo.
From a network management
perspective, Brocade’s abric
switches can be handled as one vir-
tual switch, eliminating some o the
issues that engineers generally have
when processing is moved rom a
central location throughout many
racks.
new ALternAtIveS to
dAtA center FAbrIcS eMerGe
While networking vendors went
on a attening renzy this year, I/O
virtualization technology providers,
such as Xsigo, have come up with
their own take on any-to-any server
connectivity by creating server ab-
ric technology.
Last summer, Xsigo announced
a new IP-based data center server
abric solution built on top o its
original I/O Director top-o-rack
device, which virtualizes the stor-
age and network connections or
servers. Server administrators
can plug servers with standard 10
GbE NICs or 40 Gigabit InfniBand
NICs directly into the I/O Director.Through Xsigo sotware, the server
administrator can then assign net-
work and storage connections via
those NICs to physical servers andthe virtual machines that operate on
them.
While network abrics require
network administrators to establish
and manage server-to-server tra-
fc, server abrics place this power
directly in the hands o server and
virtualization administrators. Once
this server-to-server trafc is no
longer visible to the Ethernet net-
work, it will eliminate the need or
network administrators to manage
virtual machines with VLANs.
For now, because the technology
is so new, it’s not likely to throw a
wrench in the plans o engineers
“Bere everythinghad t g acrssLayer 3, bt nw thatit ges acrss Layer2, it’s very ast.”—WIM VANHooF
infrastructure manager,
De Persgroep
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network evolution e-zine • december 2011 21
hme
idea lab
are we finally
in the age f the
flat netwrk?
Srt f
Can enterpriSe
wireleSS lanS
replaCe wired
netwrkS?
nt quite
fCoe at the
edge iS here; end-t-end StrategieS
are imminent
why bther with
end-t-end fCoe?
an edge Strategy
wrkS juSt fine
the reality check issue
who are already considering a
change in network architecture—
but that could change over time.
“So much o the industry isocused on network abrics, but we
haven’t seen mainstream computer
vendors adopt server abrics yet,”
said ZK Research analyst Zeus Ker-
ravala. “You need the support o an
HP or IBM [or wide-scale uptake].”
That said, as IT organization silos
come down and data center tech-
nology gets rolled into a combined
group o networking, compute and
storage experts, they may together
begin to look at server abric as a
real alternative i it’s easier to work
with, Kerravala added.
FLAt networkS:
A LonG Peer revIew LIeS AheAd
Vendors will continue to evange-lize at data center networks, and
enterprises will listen. But adopting
these new technologies is not trivial.
Network engineers are evaluating
the technology, but they are also
waiting or someone else to be the
guinea pig.
“Customers are a little slow to
adopt new architectures until they
see their peers beginning to do it,”
Conroy said.
Bear in mind that rereshing a
data center network is never easy to
begin with. Adopting a new archi-tecture just makes the process more
daunting, especially since most
enterprises aren’t willing or able toput other technology investments
on hold while proving out a new net-
work.
“Consider how much trouble it is
to get a major, large-scale applica-
tion launched,” Thiele said. “Then
imagine how people will react i you
say, ‘By the way, while we’re launch-
ing this application, we want to put
in a major new network strategy.’” n
“S mch theindstry is csedn netwrk abrics,bt we haven’t seen
mainstream cm-pter vendrs adptserver abrics yet.”—ZEuS KERRAVALA
analyst, ZK Research
8/2/2019 Dec Network Evolution
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network evolution e-zine • december 2011 23
hme
idea lab
are we finally
in the age f the
flat netwrk?
Srt f
Can enterpriSe
wireleSS lanS
replaCe wired
netwrkS?
nt quite
fCoe at the
edge iS here; end-t-end StrategieS
are imminent
why bther with
end-t-end fCoe?
an edge Strategy
wrkS juSt fine
the reality check issue
editor’s reality check: Throughout
the year, we’ve reported that wireless
networks are nally reliable enough
or mission-critical enterprise use.We’ve also heard hints that they could
even replace wired networks. But here
we learn that mission-critical doesn’t
mean replacement; it means wired
and wireless network unication.
let’s face it: The wireless LAN as an
overlay is dead.
But wait—that doesn’t mean
there’s any truth to the buzz around
replacing wired networks with wire-
less. In act, such substitution only
really occurs at the edge o the LAN.
Ater all, it takes tons o wire to
implement wireless. Even in a wire-
less network, there must be inter-
connect and backhaul or all those
access points, and, o course, or
connectivity as we get closer to thecore.
What’s more o a reality, how-
ever, is the unifcation o wireless
and wired LANs through a common
management platorm with one
console, operating o o the same
management databases. We’re not
all the way there yet, but we’re get-
ting closer all the time.
By uniying network management,
engineers can reduce operating
expense, a key element—along with
capital expense—in computing total
cost o ownership. A single view o
everything going on in the network
rom a common—and possibly
CaN eNterprise
wireless laNsreplaCe wired Net-works? Not quiteThe nifcatin wireless and wired LANs allwsnetwrking teams t cnslidate capital expenditresand simpliy peratins by treating the Ethernet and wirelessLAN netwrks as a single nifed inrastrctre with anintegrated management platrm. by Craig j. mathias
8/2/2019 Dec Network Evolution
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network evolution e-zine • december 2011 24
hme
idea lab
are we finally
in the age f the
flat netwrk?
Srt f
Can enterpriSe
wireleSS lanS
replaCe wired
netwrkS?
nt quite
fCoe at the
edge iS here; end-t-end StrategieS
are imminent
why bther with
end-t-end fCoe?
an edge Strategy
wrkS juSt fine
the reality check issue
mobile—console means that net-
work operations sta can be more
efcient and productive. What’s
more, unifed databases or security,logging, reporting and compliance
add to the reliability o mission-
critical LANs.
Both network hardware and
management sotware vendors are
increasingly responding to this need
or a unifed solution. While it’s not
reasonable to expect that any arbi-
trary element o a network rom any
given vendor can be transparently
integrated into a unifed networking
solution, each new upgrade instal-
lation brings more components that
are 10 Gbps and above and open or
integration into a unifed manage-
ment solution.
While vendors are already ocus-
ing on unifed network solutions,
the emergence o new managementsystem standards based on XML
will emerge and better defne the
path or users and vendors.
In the meantime, it’s important to
note that unifed networking in no
way necessarily compromises the
undamental interoperability upon
which we’ve all built our networks
over the years.
When unifed networking
becomes universal, we’ll see lower
operational costs, higher productiv-ity, better integrated security, great-
er reliability, improved uniormity o
services, easier growth and scalabil-
ity and much more.
We’ll see a ew bumps along the
road, but i unifed networking is
not already in your strategic plans,
now’s the time to consider change. n
When nifed net-wrking becmesniversal, we’ll seelwer peratinal
csts, higher pr-dctivity, better in-tegrated secrity,greater reliability,imprved nirmity services, easiergrwth and scalability.
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Access time-saving technical tips, independent expert advice, checklists andtutorials, along with webcasts, white papers, newsletters and more - all for free!
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8/2/2019 Dec Network Evolution
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network evolution e-zine • december 2011 26
hme
idea lab
are we finally
in the age f the
flat netwrk?
Srt f
Can enterpriSe
wireleSS lanS
replaCe wired
netwrkS?
nt quite
fCoe at the
edge iS here; end-t-end StrategieS
are imminent
why bther with
end-t-end fCoe?
an edge Strategy
wrkS juSt fine
the reality check issue
editor’s reality check: Networking
vendors may promise that end-to-end
Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) is
ready or prime time, but users are still
largely torn. FCoE supporters say that
IT shops can start with the technologyat the edge, but very soon convergence
will occur throughout every rack. Yet
disbelievers say that Ethernet is not
nearly reliable enough or storage tra-
c and that running end-to-end FCoE
requires way too much engineering.
In this point-counterpoint eature,
two storage and networking experts,
Stuart Miniman o the technology
orum Wikibon and Stephen Foskett o
Gestalt IT and Tech Field Day, take on
the issue rom opposing views. Read
both and see which side you support.
cios have a huge challenge in the
ace o explosive growth in data
and applications: They must control
not only the cost o IT inrastruc-
ture, but also deal with diminish-
ing power and space availability.
What does that mean or IT shops?It means the need to look at un-
damental architectural changes,
including the convergence o stor-
age and networks. Fibre Channel
over Ethernet (FCoE) is fnally ready
to meet that challenge—frst at the
edge but very soon in the rack.
The IT community has worked
or decades to deliver a single net-
work or all inrastructures, but
specifc application requirements
have spawned the development
and adoption o multiple networks,
including Ethernet or general net-
working, Fibre Channel (FC) as
the primary storage network and
fCe at the edgeis here; eNd-to-eNdstrategies areimmiNeNtWith 10 GbE, data center bridging and FCE-ready
switches and adapters shipping, the nly qestin letis this: Why nt cnverge? by stuart miNimaN
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network evolution e-zine • december 2011 27
hme
idea lab
are we finally
in the age f the
flat netwrk?
Srt f
Can enterpriSe
wireleSS lanS
replaCe wired
netwrkS?
nt quite
fCoe at the
edge iS here; end-t-end StrategieS
are imminent
why bther with
end-t-end fCoe?
an edge Strategy
wrkS juSt fine
the reality check issue
InfniBand or low latency and high-
perormance computing (HPC)
environments.
Yet this can change. With thegeneral adoption o 10 Gigabit Eth-
ernet (GbE) across enterprise data
centers and the emergence o data
center bridging (DCB), convergence
to Ethernet as a single network is
now viable. An added advantage
is that DCB gives administrators
the knobs to deliver Quality o Ser-
vice (QoS) or all trafc—including
general LAN trafc, plus storage
options like iSCSI and FCoE—over a
single network.While neither FC nor
InfniBand are likely to disappear in
the next fve years, new or expand-
ed data centers should give strong
consideration to converging on an
all-Ethernet environment starting at
the edge.
For FC customers, FCoE is apath toward converged network-
ing. The standard or FCoE was
ratifed in 2009 and a broad spec-
trum o products have been deliv-
ered—including those rom Cisco,
Brocade, Intel, HP, NetApp, EMC,
Juniper, Dell and others. Adoption
today is predominately in embed-
ded solutions, such as blade serv-
ers, that are at the server-edge o
the data center. This is the natural
progression o technology adop-
tion, especially in the risk-adverse
storage world. FCoE at the edge is
a simple deployment with a simple
fnancial justifcation.
But FCoE won’t stop at the edge.
Adoption is expected to increase in
rack and stack servers. While serv-ers and storage that support FCoE
have been around or over a year,
multi-hop FCoE confgurations only
started shipping a ew months ago.
Multi-hop solutions ace chal-
lenges in that despite conorming
to the standard, architectures vary
greatly among vendors. Yet this
does not mean that there are sta-
bility issues; rather it means that
some o the same switch-to-switch
interoperability challenges seen in
FC will carry over to FCoE. FC cus-
tomers typically standardize on a
single vendor, and FCoE switches do
have broad interoperability support
with host adapters, storage arrays
and FC switches.
While no storage administratorclamors or a new protocol, there is
no need to ear FCoE, which is built
with much o the same architec-
ture as FC. As more o a company’s
switches and adapters are “conver-
gence-ready”—both Ethernet ports
that can support FCoE and FC ports
that can change personality to Eth-
ernet/FCoE—there will be increased
pressure rom management to
move toward a single network. The
good news with FCoE is that storage
knowledge doesn’t go away with
a move to an all-Ethernet environ-
ment. n
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network evolution e-zine • december 2011 29
hme
idea lab
are we finally
in the age f the
flat netwrk?
Srt f
Can enterpriSe
wireleSS lanS
replaCe wired
netwrkS?
nt quite
fCoe at the
edge iS here; end-t-end StrategieS
are imminent
why bther with
end-t-end fCoe?
an edge Strategy
wrkS juSt fine
the reality check issue
all year i have watched storage and
networking vendors twisting and
turning to convince the world they
have delivered end-to-end FCoE. In
act, the products they’ve released
are largely inadequate. What’smore, they’ve never addressed the
burning question: Why bother with
an end-to-end strategy when FCoE
at the edge is more practical?
It’s important to frst note that
moving enterprise storage trafc
to Ethernet networks seems like a
match made in hell. The SCSI pro-
tocol requires delivery o packets
that are lossless and in order, but
Ethernet was designed or “best
eort” delivery. This won’t cut it
or storage, which is a high-volume
payload, swamping adapters and
switches with I/O.
But the lure o commodity-driven
pricing and order o magnitude
aster roadmap perormance is too
enticing to ignore, so the storage
networking industry has let it to the
engineers to fgure out how to make
Ethernet an appropriate transportmechanism or block storage.
Fitting the square peg o stor-
age into the round hole o Ethernet
required quite a bit o engineer-
ing: The FCoE rame ormat and
FCoE Initialization Protocol (FIP),
established in 2010 as FC-BB-5, laid
the groundwork, while data center
bridging (DCB) extensions brought
ow control and queue manage-
ment to transorm Ethernet into a
reliable transport mechanism.
This bulked up version o 10
Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) unctions
surprisingly well in practice, and
was quickly put into production at
why bother witheNd-to-eNd fCoe?aN edge strategyworks just fiNeIt takes way t mch engineering r end-t-end
FCE t wrk, and vendr prdcts are wellyinadeqate. by stepheN foskett
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network evolution e-zine • december 2011 30
hme
idea lab
are we finally
in the age f the
flat netwrk?
Srt f
Can enterpriSe
wireleSS lanS
replaCe wired
netwrkS?
nt quite
fCoe at the
edge iS here; end-t-end StrategieS
are imminent
why bther with
end-t-end fCoe?
an edge Strategy
wrkS juSt fine
the reality check issue
the edges o existing Fibre Channel
SANs or blade server attachments.
This is the essence o “edge-only”
FCoE, and it delivers a one-twopunch o exibility and perormance
at a reasonable cost. Most large
IT shops are perectly happy using
Fibre Channel at the core and Ether-
net at the edge.
But network switching vendors
won’t be content until they con-
vert the whole SAN to Ethernet,
so they spent 2011 crowing about
end-to-end FCoE, even though
products that shipped are a mixed
bag o pre-standard and proprietary
technologies. Their Ethernet abric
approaches range rom unctional-
but-unky to standardish-but-
experimental to laughably-limited.
And implementation o FC-BB-5 is
decidedly spotty or most vendors.
Put simply, end-to-end FCoE is pre-mature.
Ultimately, end users will be hap-
pier deploying 8 Gb Fibre Channel
SANs with a mix o FC and FCoE
server connections. They can see
how shaky FCoE at the core is at the
present time, and they are perectly
happy holding o on that transition
or a ew more years. Why would
they risk their jobs, and the saety otheir data, or a brand-new protocol
with limited return on investment?
Perhaps this controversy is born
o a undamental misunderstanding
by the networking industry o the
nature o enterprise storage. “Stor-
age people” are cautious and risk-
averse. Adoption o new technolo-gies is slow because storage simply
must be reliable. FCoE proponents
should be pleased with their oot-
hold at the edge o the SAN rather
than pushing aggressively to the
core. n
Mst large IT shpsare perectly happysing Fibre Channel
at the cre andEthernet at the edge.
8/2/2019 Dec Network Evolution
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network evolution e-zine • december 2011 32
hme
idea lab
are we finally
in the age f the
flat netwrk?
Srt f
Can enterpriSe
wireleSS lanS
replaCe wired
netwrkS?
nt quite
fCoe at the
edge iS here; end-t-end StrategieS
are imminent
why bther with
end-t-end fCoe?
an edge Strategy
wrkS juSt fine
about the authors
Rivka Gewirtz Little is the
Senior Site Editor or Tech-
Target Networking Media.
Shamus McGillicuddy is the
News Director or TechTarget
Networking Media Group.
Craig J. Mathias is a Principal
with Farpoint Group, an advi-
sory and systems-integration
rm based in Ashland, MA, specializing
in wireless networking, mobile comput-
ing, and related technologies, products
and services.
Stuart Miniman is an analyst
and research lead or net-
working and virtualization
or The Wikibon Project.
Stephen Foskett is an active
participant in the world o
enterprise inormation tech-
nology, currently ocusing on enterprise
storage and cloud computing. He is
responsible or Gestalt IT, a community
o independent IT thought leaders, and
organizes the popular Tech Field Day
events.
Network Evolution Ezine s p
tta n ma.
ria Giz Lil
Senior Site Editor
@a.
Sams MGilli
d f ns a Fas
s@a.
kaa Gai
S maa e
a@a.
Lia k
d f o ds
@a.
ka Gig
ea d
@a.
for sales iNquiries, please coNtact:
tm cli
S d f Sas
@a.
617-431-9491
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