Data center transformation--Sophisticated switching drives fast, fat, and flat

L2 - L3-based network virtualization technologies not only eliminate the VLAN-based scaling limitations that challenge multitenant networks; they also promise to separate network virtualization-related configurations from physical switches.  This enables the use of multivendor equipment across software-defined networks, ideal for both public and complex, hybrid cloud deployments. 

Intelligent Switching Fuels Further Growth of Cloud-Scale Virtualization

For effective network virtualization at cloud-scale, today’s high-performance switch solutions must support the range of new and innovative L2oL3 overlay network technologies such as L2GRE, VXLAN, and NVGRE. L2GRE is implemented in the open source Open VSwitch (OVS) initiative, and VXLAN and NVGRE are industry collaborations initiated by VMware and Microsoft, respectively, along with their partners.¹

Sophisticated switching technologies are essential to enabling the unique performance requirements of cloud-scale networks. These highly scalable networks must extend the scale of virtual LANs, and provide VM scale, network partitioning, and hybrid cloud enablement for multitenancy support. And perhaps most importantly, effective cloud-scale designs must allow efficient VM-based workload placement through live VM migration across pods or sites in a single data center or across data centers. 

Legacy tiered and over-subscribed network architectures have effectively served traditional tiered server deployments.  But with increased adoption of virtualization and clustered applications in servers, and resulting increased east-west traffic patterns in the data center, it is clear that network architectures need change to enable required performance demanded by such applications. When using network infrastructure to garner a competitive advantage – today and moving forward into greater and greater amounts of data generated by public, private and hybrid cloud environments – it’s easy to see the transformative nature of virtualization and switching technologies optimized for cloud computing.

¹The VXLAN and NVGRE specifications have been submitted as RFC (Request for Comments) drafts to the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force). Broadcom is a co-author of the VXLAN and NVGRE specifications and is working collaboratively with its partners, the IETF and OVS communities, in developing its Smart-NV technology for data center switches. 

About the Author

Sujal Das, Director of Product Marketing, Infrastructure and Networking Group, Broadcom Corp.  is responsible for driving Broadcom's Ethernet switch business in the data center and enterprise LAN market segments, and the development of product, ecosystem and strategy based on technology trends and application workloads. Das has extensive experience in semiconductors, networking software, data center network architectures, virtualization, and server systems. Prior to Broadcom, Das served in senior product development and marketing roles at AMD, Marvell Semiconductors and Mellanox Technologies. 

Das earned a BS EEE degree from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Pilani, India and an MBA from Santa Clara University. He has published and presented on numerous data center networking and virtualization related topics in well-known industry publications and events.  Das has been active in the open source community, driving multiple initiatives that have helped proliferate the adoption of high-performance networking in data center applications.