There are a growing number of options to make data center networking more flexible.  One option is the use of Edge Virtual Bridging or EVB, which has been standardized in project IEEE 802.1Qbg and championed by IBM, HP, Brocade, QLogic, Emulex and many others.  This approach extends the Virtual Ethernet Bridge or VEB sometime called Virtual Ethernet Switch (VES) used by hypervisors to connect VMs to the data center network.  Renato Recio, IBM Fellow & System Networking CTO joins me to discuss IBM’s approach to virtual network infrastructure overlays and in particular its support for Edge Virtual Bridging. 

Modern corporate networks are under increasing pressure to support a wider variety of applications thanks to mobile and cloud computing, desktop virtualization plus video traffic having skyrocketed.  Not only are bandwidth rates increasing from 1 to 10 to 40 GbE, but most importantly network services are needed to manage and support a different application portfolio mix and network access methods.  Network services such as firewalls, WLANs, network diagnostics and monitoring plus application performance acceleration are needed to deliver a consistently excellent user experience.  Cisco recently announced an upgrade to its popular Catalyst 6k with the availability of the Supervisor 2T that included re-vamped high performance service modules to deliver these network services.  Shweta Goyal, product line manager at Cisco Systems joins me to discuss which network services need to be available in modern networks. 

Download “A Comprehensive Testing of Cisco Systems Catalyst 6500 Sup2T” report here. 

WAN bandwidth, or the lack thereof, is the single largest contributor to poor application performance in branch offices resulting in reduced productivity and the inability of IT to implement their entire strategy.  This is especially acute as applications are increasingly centralized in data centers and video traffic starts to dominate flows all of which put more pressure on the WAN.  A new approach to wide area networking takes advantage of virtualization concepts.  WAN virtualization promises to reduce WAN cost and increase performance.  If your WAN utilizes T1 MPLS links at $300/month or higher and ADSL between $10-$15/ month then you can benefit significantly from WAN virtualization as it offers 3-4 times the bandwidth at lower cost and in the process eliminating WAN design constraints limiting IT business leaders.  Keith Morris of Talari Networks joins me to discuss WAN Virtualization.  I have first hand knowledge of how good this solution works, if you fit the above profile, then listen up.

Andre Kindness, Senior Analyst at Forrester Research joins Zeus Kerravala, principal at ZK Research and I for our annual predictions podcast.  We discuss Cisco, IBM Network Systems, Huawei, Juniper, Extreme, Arista, Nicria, Big Switch, Verizon, AT&T, HP Networking, Citrix, F5, Riverbed, Brocade, Broadcom, Meru, Aerohive, Ruckus, Meraki, Inflblox, Palo Alto Networks, Polycom, embrane, et al and what 2012 will bring for them and you.  Enjoy, Nick

Having a plan to transition to IPv6 has moved way up in the priority list of IT projects for IT leaders as 2011 was officially the year we ran out of IPv4 unallocated addresses and not having IPv6 could cut-off corporations and applications from accessing the internet.  In addition employees en masse are “BYOD” or bring your own device meaning smartphone and tables to work increasing the number of devices on the network significantly.  These devices and their applications are driving support of both IPv4 and IPv6 as many mobile devices are now set for IPv6 as the default.  As dual stack IP v4/v6 is the best practice, the real challenge lies within the domain name service or DNS. Infloblox has developed a range of solutions to automate the transition to IPv6 by supporting both addressing schemes.  Tom Coffeen, Chief IPv6 Evangelist at Infoblox talks about solutions to automate the transition to IPv6.     It’s one of our best IPv6 discussions.

The Inflobox plug-in module for VMware’s vCenter Orchestrator promises to bridge network and virtual IT team silos by enabling automated assignment of IP addresses to VMs. The Infloblox plug-in enables IP addresses to be automatically assigned to virtual machines in less than a minute and then constantly monitored and managed, which simplifies troubleshooting, accelerates time to value and offers greater flexibility for the virtual team.  Steve Garrison, VP Marketing for Infoblox and I discuss the problems of networking in virtualized environments and how Infoblox’s vCenter plug-in solves them.

IT business leaders are seeking data center fabrics that scale to support increasing density of physical and virtual servers at cloud spec.  In October of this year, Cisco delivered a monster data center fabric announcement aimed at increasing scale, security and new data center services.  A few highlights are the second-generation Nexus 7000 capabilities, a new Nexus 7009 platform, plus FabricPath capabilities on the Nexus 5500 and expanded Nexus 1GbE and 40GbE form factors of the Nexus 3000.  Shashi Kiran, Director of Market Management for Data Center/Virtualization and Enterprise Switching at Cisco Systems joins me to talk about what IT business leaders will gain from this new announcement from a business outcome and data center fabric design perspective. 

You can’t manage what you can’t measure.  Cisco’s next generation NetFlow provides deep application visibility, detailed measurement plus increased control and security for IT departments that are struggling to get ahead of an Enterprise application portfolio that is undergoing a massive transition thanks to mobile and cloud computing.   Samuel Pasquier, product manager for Cisco Systems, and Adam Powers, chief technology officer for Lancope discuss best practices for securing and gaining visibility to applications that are flowing over enterprise networks with the next generation of NetFlow.        

Andre Kindness, Senior Analyst at Forrester Research and Zeus Kerravala, principal at ZK Research join me to discuss the shift-taking place in data center networking.  Data Center networking is at an inflection point thanks to industry transitions driving new economics, technologies and IT delivery via mobile and cloud computing.  These market transitions happen only once every decade or so and we detail its dynamics in this industry analyst round table.  We discuss virtualization, merchant silicon, software defined networking, the rise of best of breed products, what network designs are working and which aren’t.  We end with how IT business leaders can navigate an industry is transition. 

Power over Ethernet or PoE has evolved from delivering 7 Watts/port to support IP Phones to now 60 Watts/port to power a wide range of devices that span WLAN access points, surveillance video cameras, video conferencing end points, IP Turrets for financial trading and now thin client desktop devices to support virtualized desktops.  The current high PoE standard is IEEE 802.3at that details 30 Watts/port, so Cisco’s Universal PoE or UPOE solution at 60W is a pre-standard offering.  The key point about UPOE is that it provides a new range of design options in both power distribution, but more importantly how virtualized desktops and other electronics are powered. Pradeep Parmar, Senior Marketing Manager, Borderless Networks at Cisco Systems joins me to talk about the fundamental change PoE is taking thanks to Cisco’s UPOE solution.