Force10 Networks: Avoid traffic spikes by removing legacy switches

IT professionals who want to minimise latency within their virtualised environments should remove all legacy switches, as these can result in traffic spikes, according to Force10 Networks.

The vendor's vice-president of product line management Bala Pitchaikani wrote in an article for Network World that instead, top-of-rack (ToR) switches that deliver adjustable buffers in order to tackle the changing requirements of storage and server infrastructures should be deployed.

He pointed to Force10 Networks' line-rate and non-blocking performance switches complete with buffering capacity of "several gigabytes". These solutions enable each port to access "a large reserve pool of memory if necessary. As a result, buffer capacity is self-regulating and traffic spikes simply cause the use of larger amounts of buffer", Mr Pitchaikani stated.

Furthermore, he added that traffic spikes can be caused by a growing number of applications within each rack as a result of server virtualisation. The Force10 Networks S4810 ToR switch was recently given the 2011 NGN Leadership Award by the Technology Marketing Corporation for its ability to bolster the performance of data centre networking.

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