IBM and Cisco: Together for a World Class Data Center

Overcoming the limitations of traditional data center networks

This chapter introduces the main challenges that network architects have to face when trying to design and implement networks in a data center environment. We elaborate on the Cisco solutions that can be leveraged to overcome these shortcomings:

•First we introduce the traditional three tiered data center network model and explain why traditional Ethernet networks cannot meet the requirements that modern data centers bring in terms of efficiency, flexibility, scalability, and manageability. ...