Network Managers: Know Thyself

The transition to 10 Gbit Ethernet (GbE) from 1 GbE appears to be gaining traction, 4G and LTE wireless networks are quickly replacing 3G, and the introduction of Intel's Romley microprocessor platform later this year, with built-in 10-GbE support, is expected to drive another round of server refreshes industrywide. All of this is causing network operators to buckle up for a bumpy ride as they try to manage the torrent of data on their networks these innovations will unleash.

And even as 10GbE is advancing, an increase to 40GbE and 100GbE connectivity is generating the next threatening waves. But many of the clients that industry researcher Zeus Kerravala, principal analyst at ZK Research, consults for don't have a clear sense of what traffic courses through their networks and how to best manage it.

"One piece of advice I always give network managers is don't re-architect your network or make any decisions until you truly know your network," he says. "My estimate is that only about 25% of network managers really know their network."

Enter Gigamon, which just introduced an additional network chassis that delivers what is calls a Traffic Visibility Fabric technology. It sits on top of the network layer as an abstracted layer, providing that visibility for various network management tools that track performance, quality of service, security and other important metrics.

The GigaVUE-HD4 Traffic Visibility Node chassis is a five-rack unit (5RU) device that complements the GigaVUE-HD8 chassis unveiled by Gigamon in May 2011. That is a larger 14RU chassis that customers thought was great, but a bit much.

"We designed this [HD4] box because customers were saying your big chassis, the HD8, is pretty efficient on space at 14RU, but it's big. Is there something that fits between a classic 1RU and the 14RU?" says Paul Hooper, network visibility strategist for Gigamon.

The HD4 offers eight 40-Gbps ports, 96 10-Gbps ports or 176 1-Gbps ports, depending on how the blade is configured. It delivers up to 1.3 Tbits of throughput and aggregates data from a row of servers by sitting at the end of each row.The beauty of the HD4, as well as the HD8, is the investment protection of being able to migrate from 10 to 40 to 100 GbE as needs change, says ZK's Kerravala. "The fact that it can do 10 gig natively, and it's got enough capacity to do 40 gig and 100 gig without an upgrade, means it lets companies upgrade to the higher speeds at their own pace," he says.

The confluence of technologies increasing network bandwidth--10 GbE, 4G wireless, Intel Romley--is needed to support the increasing demands on service provider and data center networks, says Gigamon's Mike Valladeo, product director for the HD line. Faster and more sophisticated networks are needed to support the growing number of endpoint devices, the explosion of data they are creating and crunching, the variety of applications they are running on premise and in the cloud, the number of physical and virtual servers they have to manage, and the extension of the fixed network to a mobile network, he says.

This creates a market opportunity for network administrators seeking to upgrade, as well as for vendors like Gigamon. "People are moving quicker now because I believe their budgets are starting to open up and they are seeing that the data that was evolving is now all of a sudden starting to explode," says Valladeo.

Another factor helping drive the 10 GbE market is declining prices. The average selling price has dropped to $388 per port in 2011, down from $818 per port in 2008. Key vendors in this market include Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Brocade, Cisco Systems, Extreme Networks, Dell, HP, IBM and Juniper Networks.

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