Resources for Business & IT Leaders
Free Access to
Thousands of Downloads
Register for Access. Existing User? Login.
May 24th, 2011
By Force10 Networks
Storage networks present major challenges for data center switches that must be resolved to ensure fast and error-free transport of storage traffic. Force10 S60 switches are purpose-built to handle storage traffic with line-rate performance in Gigabit Ethernet and 10-Gigabit Ethernet networks.
March 28th, 2011
By BLADE Networking Technologies, an IBM Company
Today, virtualization, cloud computing and high frequency trading place new demands on the system network fabric to deliver non-stop, ultra low-latency traffic flows. This traffic is increasingly “east-west†in nature to enable machine-to-machine communications versus the “north-south†traffic that characterizes conventional client/server and Web-based application environments. To deliver this east-west traffic using the most efficient flows, large flat networks are becoming increasingly popular. These flat Layer 2 networks eliminate extra hops to decrease latency, do not block any paths across the network, and are simple to configure. Such flat networks are built with large numbers of inexpensive top-of-rack switches, scale horizontally by simply adding more switches, and enable VLANs to span across a data center to provide larger server pools for virtualization. TRILL or TRansparent Interconnection of Lots of Links is fundamental to IBM’s approach and is explained in this white paper.
March 15th, 2011
By Clabby Analytics
Other reseach and analysis firms seem to see IBM’s acquisition of BLADE Network Technologies (BLADE) as a competitive response to
Hewlett-Packard’s acquisition of 3Com and Cisco’s entry into the blade server business, but there’s much more to this deal than competitive dynamics. Clabby Analytics believes that data center virtualization is accelerating, and the demand for more I/O per server is on the rise. Additionally, networks are converging around a single Ethernet wiring plant. These industry changes are the true driving factors in this deal.
In this Research Report, Clabby Analytics examines what the acquisition of BLADE could mean to IBM and its customers. We take a closer look at the DCB convergence that is taking place in the networking marketplace; we examine why virtualization logic at the network level makes sense; and we discuss what this acquisition may mean from a competitive positioning perspective. Finally, we conclude that now is an ideal time for IBM to re-enter the networking business.
February 28th, 2011
The data center switching market is heating up. To address the scale issues posed by mobile and cloud computing nearly every network vendor is launching its own version of a 10/40/100 GbE fabric to connect servers and storage to the internet. At the heart of this fabric is a two-tier (Fat-Tree) network made up of leaf/ToR and spine/Core switches. Here leafs connect servers and spines connect leafs while also being interconnected in a logical mesh. The protocols to create this logical mesh are based upon IS-IS link state routing, but each vendor is taking a unique approach with Cisco using its FastPath, Alcatel-Lucent and Avaya using SPB (802.1aq Shortest Path Bridging) while Brocade VDX is based upon TRILL (Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links). Juniper recently announced QFabric but has not detailed what it’s using for logical meshing. At the center of new data center design are leaf and spine switches. In Lippis Report Research Note 166, we detailed the latest ToR switches. In this Lippis Report Research Note 167, we dive into performance and power consumption measurements plus the use of SPB of Alcatel-Lucent’s OmniSwitch 10K, a new entry into spine/core data center switching market.
February 28th, 2011
By Cisco Systems
Deploying network services in virtual data centers is extremely challenging. Traditionally, such Layer 4 through 7 services relied on intrusive, inline deployment and static network topologies. They were thus completely at odds with highly scalable virtual data center designs with mobile workloads, on-demand virtual machine (VM) provisioning, and strict service-level agreements (SLAs).
Cisco® Unified Network Services (UNS) addresses all of these problems by creating a framework for multiple services that can be configured and provisioned on demand, dynamically, to suit the service needs of enterprise applications and cloud users. This dramatically reduces network management overhead, allowing for a much more agile data center and business while providing improved application performance and a secure infrastructure. Cisco UNS comprises Cisco’s industry-leading solutions for virtual data centers that deliver.
â— Load balancing and application controllers
â— WAN acceleration
â— Network security
â— Network analysis and monitoring
February 14th, 2011
During December 6-10, 2010, the Lippis Report and Ixia conducted the industry’s first 10GbE data center switching evaluation of Top-of-Rack and Core Ethernet switches at the modern iSimCity lab in Santa Clara, CA. We evaluated Alcatel-Lucent’s OmniSwitch 10K, Arista’s 7504 Series Data Center Switch, BLADE Network Technologies’, an IBM Company, IBM BNT RackSwitch G8124 and IBM BNT RackSwitch G8264, Force10 Network’s S-Series S4810, Hitachi Cable’s Apresia 15000-64XL-PSR, Juniper Network’s EX Series EX8216 Ethernet Switch and Voltaire®’s Vantage™ 6048. We are conducting a second round of test scheduled for the week of April 4-8 at iSimCity, and it is open to all suppliers of 10GbE data center switching. We learned a lot about these products, both in the lab and out. In this Lippis Report Research Note, we dive into the Top-of-Rack 10GbE switches we tested as they represent a new generation of products that exhibit low power consumption, low latency, high performance and are all based upon new single chip designs from Broadcom, Marvell or Fulcrum Micro.
February 14th, 2011
By Ken Won, Director of Product Marketing at Force10 Networks
Server and storage environments have seen a lot of changes in the past ten years, while developments in networking have remained fairly static. Now, the demands of virtualization and network convergence are driving significant changes in the data center network. Networks have always been considered as plumbing that connect servers and storage, but new, dynamic switches are changing the network’s role in the overall data center. It’s not your father’s network anymore, and savvy data center managers need to understand and plan for the changes that are coming.
This white paper discusses new network technologies, explains what they are, and suggests how to plan for them in future data center architectures.
February 14th, 2011
by Cisco Systems
Cisco® Borderless Networks is a next-generation architecture that helps IT evolve its infrastructure to deliver seamless, secure and reliable access in a world with many new and shifting borders. The Cisco Integrated Services Routers Generation 2 (ISR G2) constitute a critical component of the Cisco Borderless Network Architecture and deliver performance requirements for the next generation of WAN and network services, enabling the cost-effective delivery of high-definition collaboration at the branch office, and providing a secure transition to the next generation of cloud and virtualized network services. This white paper discusses the concept of integrated services as they apply to the branch-office router, and how they help to enable the borderless branch office for small- to medium-sized business, large enterprises and service providers offering managed services.
February 14th, 2011
By Arista Networks
While servers and applications have fully embraced the concepts of automation, sadly the network infrastructure, on which they all rely, is still mired in legacy technologies. Current methodology, such as CLI, requires extensive hands-on provisioning and configuration by knowledgeable personnel. In modern cloud infrastructure, network managers must be able to centralize provisioning and configuration roles to improve reliability, minimize bring-up costs, and contain the expenses of creating a cloud data center service. Whether you are looking to maximize the efficiency and reliability of your existing operations, or you are looking to take advantage of a cloud-based infrastructure, fully automated provisioning is an essential capability, and Arista’s Zero Touch provisioning offers the first approach to automated network configuration.
February 14th, 2011
By Voltaire
The Data Center Bridging Group of the IEEE worked to enhance Ethernet to support class isolation, low latency, I/O and switch virtualization, lossless traffic flows, congestion control, multi-path L2 routing, and L2 discovery and capability exchange. These new technologies are referred to as Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE) or Data Center Ethernet (DCE). Voltaire’s CEE switches and software offer performance requirements thanks to its scalable Ethernet fabric that lowers overall fabric costs, lowers power consumption, has greater efficiencies, and simplifies management.
This document describes the challenges inherent in traditional Ethernet solutions and how Voltaire’s scale-out Ethernet architecture effectively addresses those challenges.
February 14th, 2011
By BLADE Network Technologies, an IBM Company
King’s College London medical researchers, who specialize in the field of genetics, strive to better understand the causes of a range of serious health issues, including skin disease, diabetes and cancer. Such research depends heavily on its new IBM iDataplex HPC system with IBM BNT RackSwitch G8124 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches for maximizing compute processing power to deliver data analysis in the fastest possible time. This white paper details the design and outcome of the Biomedical Research Centre’s (BRC) High Performance Computing (HPC) and storage solution.
January 31st, 2011
by Lippis Report Testing
This report details the test results of the Force10 Networks S-Series S4810 enterprise Top-of-Rack (ToR) Ethernet switch. All 48 10GbE ports of the Force10 Networks S-Series S4810 are populated and tested for performance, throughput, latency and power consumption. The Force10 Networks S-Series S4810 test results are then compared against IBM BNT RackSwitch G8264, Voltaire Vantageâ„¢ 6048 and Apresia 15K ToR switches.
To download the test report please CLICK HERE
January 31st, 2011
by Lippis Report Testing
This report details the test results of the IBM BNT RackSwitch G8124 & G8264 enterprise Top-of-Rack (ToR) Ethernet switches. All 24 and 64 10GbE ports of the IBM BNT RackSwitch G8124 & G8264, respectively, are populated and tested for performance, throughput, latency and power consumption. The IBM BNT RackSwitch G8124 & G8264’s test results are then compared against Force10 Networks S4810, Voltaire Vantage™ 6048 and Apresia 15K ToR switches.
To download the test report please CLICK HERE
January 31st, 2011
by Lippis Report Testing
This report details the test results of the Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch™ 10K enterprise core Ethernet switch. All 256 10GbE ports are populated and tested for performance, throughput, latency and power consumption. The OmniSwitch™ 10K’s test results are then compared against Juniper’s EX8216 and Arista Networks 7504 core switches.
To download the test report, please click here
