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 [...]
Cisco UCS Networking videos (in HD), Updated & Improved!
March 8, 2011 By 28 Comments
Cisco UCS Fabric Extender (FEX) QoS
December 8, 2010 By 9 Comments
VMware 10GE QoS Design Deep Dive with Cisco UCS, Nexus
September 15, 2010 By 37 Comments
Last month I wrote a brief article discussing the intelligent QoS capabilities of Cisco UCS in a VMware 10GE scenario, accompanied by some flash animations for visual learners like me. In that article I (intentionally) didn’t get too specific with design details or technical nuance. Rather, I wanted to set the stage first with a [...]
Cisco UCS intelligent QoS vs. HP Virtual Connect rate limiting
August 16, 2010 By 26 Comments
This article is a simple examination of the fundamental differences in how server bandwidth is handled between the Cisco UCS approach of QoS (quality of service), and the HP Virtual Connect Flex-10 / FlexFabric approach of Rate Limiting. I created two simple flash animations shown below to make the comparison. The animations above are each [...]
Data Center Networking Q&A #1 – starring HP, Nexus 1000V, QoS
June 3, 2010 By 9 Comments
I thought it would be fun to pilot a series of posts where I pick out interesting search engine queries that were used to find my blog. Often times these are good questions that deserve a good answer, or other interesting topics that can start a good discussion or fun debate. This particular series will [...]
HP Flex-10 versus Nexus 5000 & Nexus 1000V with 10GE passthrough
February 9, 2010 By 38 Comments
I had an interesting discussion with a customer the other day where both Cisco (myself included) and HP account teams where on the same call to discuss Flex-10, Nexus 1000V, or other approaches that may work better. — Yeah, awkward. Anyway, for most of the time we (the Cisco team) focused on Flex-10′s total lack [...]
Cisco UCS and Nexus 1000V design diagram with Palo adapter
August 11, 2009 By 43 Comments
This is a follow-up and enhancement of a previous design diagram in which I showed Cisco UCS running the standard VMware vSwitch. In this post I am once again showing Cisco UCS utilizing the Cisco (Palo) virtualized adapter with an implementation of VMware vSphere 4.0, however in this design we are running ESXi and the [...]
DSCP Assured Forwarding PHB
March 22, 2006 By Leave a Comment
RFC 2597 defines a group of DSCP settings called “Assured Forwarding” Per Hop Behavior (PHB) to be recognized by RFC compliant DSCP routers and switches called DS nodes. The Assured Forwarding PHB class is presented as AF(xy), where x=traffic class, and y=drop precedence. 4 traffic classes, and 3 drop precedences are defined. For example, AF21 [...]
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