DATA CENTRE PREDICTIONS
In order to prepare the network for
Digital Transformation, it has to be both
customised to fit your organisation’s
needs and be flexible enough to adapt
when those needs change.
JR Rivers, Co-founder and CTO,
Cumulus Networks
Therefore, a company’s success is
linked to how nimbly they can develop
and deliver applications that facilitate
engagement and business outcomes.
If applications are the lifeblood of today’s
organisations, networks are the digital
nervous systems that support and deliver
those applications. The problem is, while
application architectures and development
methods have become more agile, the
traditional data centre network has not
kept pace.
A new approach to
operational efficiency
According to Gartner, ‘the top
networking challenge… is improving
agility’. This, of course, is not a big
surprise. What is surprising is Gartner’s
advice to ‘pick how you want to manage
your data centre network first, then pick
the vendor/products that can slot into
that decision’.
This means that the answer to improving
your organisation’s network speed
and agility is not necessarily by buying
expensive, proprietary monster switches
and premium automation solutions.
Instead, modernisation starts with IT and
network operations which can be achieved
through network automation, greater
overall visibility into the network and IT-
as-a-Service models. A conventional ‘one
size fits all’ approach to networking just
doesn’t work in the cloud era.
18
Issue 05
Naturally, each networking vendor
presents their solution as having the
beefiest hardware and the most cutting-
edge software. They can make that claim
because often they will make both the
hardware and software work together
flawlessly. But hidden in the midst of
this seemingly unbeatable combination
is a problem: although the tight coupling
of hardware and software by the same
manufacturer may ensure compatibility, it
kills flexibility.
If your network’s hardware and software is
inflexible and cumbersome, it will always
be a hindrance to agility. No matter how
dedicated your network team is, they can’t
change the underlying architecture of a
vendor’s solution. That’s why it’s crucial
for your organisation to adopt a solution
that enables you to scale and automate
your network.
they would scale up or scale vertically to
meet performance requirements.
That’s not necessarily unreasonable.
But when taking the vertical scaling
IF APPLICATIONS
ARE THE
LIFEBLOOD
OF TODAY’S
ORGANISATIONS,
NETWORKS ARE
THE DIGITAL
NERVOUS
SYSTEMS THAT
SUPPORT AND
DELIVER THOSE
APPLICATIONS.
The importance of scalability
Network scalability means growing the
data centre network in proportion to your
organisation’s needs. There are different
levels of scalability, as well as different
ways to achieve it. For example, if an
organisation has to triple network spend
to double capacity and performance, the
network isn’t very scalable. But if they
reverse the numbers – double the network
spend and triple capacity and performance
(and do so quickly) – the network is
highly scalable. The level of scalability the
organisation can achieve depends on the
underlying network architecture.
Each organisation must decide whether to
scale vertically or scale horizontally. While
this might sound like a topic that IT geeks
debate over a cup of coffee, it’s a decision
that creates a ripple effect throughout the
rest of the organisation.
Traditionally, if an organisation has been
unsure about which particular switch
model will be beefy enough to meet its
growth needs, it has opted for the larger
(and more expensive) one. To use IT jargon,
www.intelligentdatacentres.com