High-Performance Ethernet for the Enterprise - Force10 Networks

High-Performance Ethernet for the Enterprise
Application
NOTE
“The answer to
exploding backbone
utilization is not to
complicate the network
with traffic engineering
but to simplify it by
removing congestion
points.”
Increase Bandwidth, Not OPEX
Gigabit Ethernet backbone utilizations of 30%
and more are now common. Companies can
address increasing backbone traffic and optimize
traffic flow by using complex traffic engineering
techniques. They can schedule traffic for off-peak
hours. They can reserve bandwidth for critical
traffic by employing comprehensive queuing
and QoS. And they can keep localized traffic
off of the backbone by placing servers in the
same physical location as users.
But all of these "traffic engineering" techniques
are costly and complex. As congestion increases,
managers spend more time traffic engineering
the network. Further complicating matters, the
Enterprise is dynamic. Traffic patterns change
with new applications, with every reorganization,
and organically as new people and server
are added. Thus traffic engineering becomes an
unending process, and a continuous drain on
Operational Expenditures (OPEX).
The better way to solve growing backbone
utilization problems is with bandwidth. With a
flat budget for network operations, the answer
to exploding backbone utilization is not to
complicate the network with traffic engineering
but to simplify it by removing congestion points.
This can be accomplished easily and costeffectively
with 10 GbE from Force10 Networks.
Like previous generations of Ethernet, 10 GbE
brings proven simplicity, cost-effectiveness, and
high-performance to the backbone. 10 GbE is a
flexible technology supporting short distances
across the LAN, intermediate distances across
the MAN, and long haul across the WAN with
DWDM and SONET/SDH compatibility.
Scalability with 10 GbE in the Core
To build a network that will continue to provide
non-blocking access between users and
resources as it grows, the Enterprise must deploy
a backbone that can scale with meshed nodes
and redundant paths. This topology requires a
switch/router that can support multiple 10 GbE
trunks and forward at line rate between them.
Older switch/routers optimized for GbE do not
have the switching capacity to handle nonblocking
10 GbE connections. In the backbone,
10 GbE provides much more than the convenience
connection these older switches offer.
Figure 1: 10 GbE backbones free network managers from having to "traffic
engineer" their networks by providing high-bandwidth connectivity throughout
the LAN, MAN, and WAN.
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