Networking

The balance of security processes and skills is lopsided in most organizations. Network security trumps server security at most organizations in a number of ways, from IT experience to the common perception that networks simply require more expansive security efforts than servers. ESG investigated the state of network and server security at midmarket and enterprise organizations, and considered the ramifications for organizations that expend more security resources on their networks at the expense of their servers.

A new architecture that can integrate mobile and Wi-Fi handoffs is emerging, and it promises rapid innovation.

In this case I don't believe Cisco can ultimately keep SDN from happening universally, but it sure as heck is going to slow down that train for a while. Eventually, if it does see the light of day as I suspect it will, Cisco's core networking boondoggle will come under heavy fire - and it will be forced to adapt its business model in that sector, or abandon it - eventually.

Even though I’m fairly new to all this, I find it interesting when large technology companies hold analyst events. Interesting because the events present a great opportunity for us to learn what the major message and strategy are going to be for the next 6-12 months. Sometimes these presentations are all very slick and polished and hard to get much out of them other than a few good sound bites. It is always important to listen for patterns and in the end, it is more about what the companies we follow do than what they say. Questions that come to mind are things like: Are they all on message? Is there passion and consistency in their strategies? Is it coming from the top down? What’s the hallway chatter around the coffee table? Etc.

This week attendees of Microsoft Tech Ed are getting their share of great food, music, and entertainment walking the streets of New Orleans. However, they are also there to learn about new and interesting technology from Microsoft and its partners. With all the interest in software defined networking, there will no doubt be plenty of discussion and announcements about SDN this week and Microsoft’s NVGRE solution. One of the interesting announcements came from Emulex as it threw its hat into the SDN ring.

Check out this video blog entry to see why, rather than "software-defined everything,"  we need to think about data-defined infrastructure, a model in which IT designs everything from the data outwards, in order to make sure that we store, protect, and deliver it in a way that supports the business to make money or save money.

This new consumption model and management paradigm will revolutionize the way IT thinks about data center infrastructure investments, shift the mindset of IT operations to focus more on managing than administrating systems, and potentially modify the organizational structure inside IT. Consequently, IT needs to embrace automation and intelligence designed into converged infrastructure and look to extend on premises solutions towards a cloud computing consumption model.

The current NSP scaling modus operandi of adding highly performance optimized but vendor proprietary appliances, routers, switches, and transport systems will soon become unsustainable for competitive telcos, mobile, and cable operators.

Analysts savor new technology/product announcements because they divulge how next generation products will be packaged, positioned, priced, and promoted, which are key variables in conditioning a market for a new technology...

IT has been rapidly transforming in order to be more responsive to the business. Macroeconomic events and global competition has forced organizations to more aggressively leverage technology for competitive advantage. New architectures like server and storage virtualization (web- and service-oriented architecture (SOA)-based applications) have been deployed, along with automation and orchestration tools, to enable organizations to accelerate time to market with new services.

The emergence of software-defined networking (SDN) over the past year signals a significant change in network design.

Software-defined everything.  SFE.  The latest craze in marketing mayhem.

There, of course, is some legitimacy to the phrase - but doesn't software already "define" everything in our IT world?  Doesn't software provide the execution sets that tell our "stuff" what we want it to do?  Therefore, isn't everything really already software-defined in many ways?

With about 15,000 registered for Interop 2013, the Mandalay Bay resort and casino was bustling with activity last week. The spring Interop show tends to be jam packed with vendors and attendees and this year did not disappoint. As you might expect, the topic of software-defined networking dominated the show floor, as well as many of the keynotes and sessions. What you might not have expected, therefore, was that a big honking physical network switch would take Best of Show honors.

Arista announces significant upgrades for its flagship 7500 core data center switch heading into the Interop show in Las Vegas this week. Not merely content to double its capabilities, Arista’s first major upgrade since its inception triples capabilities. While SDN has been all the buzz, Arista wants to remind organizations that hardware still matters and cloud scale environments will certainly take notice.

They say April showers bring May flowers, but for those in the tech industry, we know spring shows bring lots of new vendor product and solution announcements. And this year is no different. From a network perspective, it has already been a very busy year with numerous announcements coming at pretty frequent intervals. Just last week, leading into Interop, HP announced a significant upgrade to its FlexFabric solutions portfolio for data center networking, solutions that HP claims can drastically reduce network provisioning times and provide greater levels of automation.

So you’re going to fix all your company’s virtualization woes with your new architecture. You’re going to be the IT hero. The parts for the new solution show up on your loading dock and you start putting the pieces together, only to find out that the NIC cards you ordered don’t support a required protocol. Or worse yet, the expensive network gear you already ordered is missing a critical feature your users depend on. You persevere, scaling back your design, and exchanging components. It never seems to be an even exchange, but at least you are still within budget.

Infrastructure Deployment for 100 Virtual Machines

This ESG Lab Validation report documents hands-on testing of the EMC VSPEX Proven Infrastructure with Brocade networking for supporting 100 virtual machines (VMs). The report is focused on ease of use, performance, and high-availability networking.

I have been speaking about ICPs during a series of events across the country and received a fantastic question: “What do I do if it breaks?”