When building a fabric for a cluster of servers and storage in the data center, how should you architect the network? There are several ways to approach this. The architecture you choose probably depends on your preconceived notions of what a network should look like and addressing the things that you care about. For example, [...]
Dodging open protocols with open software
February 8, 2012 By 20 Comments
I have a hunch. Pure speculation, in fact, that there may be an even more interesting story developing here with the unveiling of networking software startup Nicira Networks. The story being that of open source networking software minimizing the role of network “protocols” and the diminishing role of standards bodies in building next generation networks. Nicira Network’s [...]
On optimizing traffic for network virtualization
December 22, 2011 By 13 Comments
The era of network virtualization and software overlays is coming (read: VXLAN, OpenFlow, SDN, etc.) and with it the role of the physical network and what we define as “the network”, is all about to change. How does this change the way application flows map to traffic on the network and servers? How does this change [...]
First take on Embrane heleos
December 12, 2011 By 23 Comments
Embrane came out of secrecy today and announced their solution that virtualizes the deployment of network based services. In the context of how this affects network virtualization, here’s my initial thoughts on Embrane’s announcement.. My first take is that Embrane heleos is a positive thing for the network virtualization movement. (Read: good for Nicira, good [...]
Network Virtualization is like a big virtual chassis
October 12, 2011 By 20 Comments
This is something I’ve been chewing on for a while now and here’s my first rough attempt at writing it down: Network Virtualization is the new chassis switch, only much bigger. (and a lot less proprietary) The x86 server is the new Linecard The network switch is the new ASIC VXLAN (or NVGRE) is the new [...]
Incomplete thought: Just in time QoS
May 17, 2011 By 22 Comments
Imagine a data center where network QoS is adaptive and self adjusting to the current application conditions. Just in time QoS. Something much different from the static, stale, and generic configurations we are accustomed to today. Configuring QoS is a pain, most people avoid it to begin with. Yet some switches are very good at [...]
On data center scale, OpenFlow, and SDN
April 21, 2011 By 21 Comments
Lately I’ve been thinking about the potential applicability of OpenFlow to massively scalable data centers. A common building block of a massive cloud data center is a cluster, a grouping of racks and servers with a common profile of inter-rack bandwidth and latency characteristics. One of the primary challenges in building networks for a massive [...]
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