Data Center Management

Software Defined Networks should make IT execs think about a lot of key factors before implementation.

Issues such as technology maturity, cost efficiencies, security implications, policy establishment and enforcement, interoperability and operational change weigh heavily on IT departments considering software-defined data centers. But perhaps the biggest consideration in software-defining your IT environment is, why would you do it?

Brocade has enhanced its VCS Fabric technology and VDX switch portfolio for datacentres.

The networking vendor's new VCS fabric capabilities include native multitenancy, storage-aware networking and 100 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) performance.

Brocade A/NZ country manager, Greig Guy, said the enhancements are a response to the growing needs of datacentres.

"Organisations want an agile and efficient network, as well as the ability to automate it," he said.

Prudential Investment Company Australia (PICA) has improved security, achieved backups that are five times faster, and is saving US$5,000 a month on bandwidth costs it no longer requires – all after implementing Silver Peak data acceleration software.

NHN Entertainment Singapore, a mobile gaming platform, has deployed in Equinix’s Singapore International Business Exchange (IBX) data center. The deployment will enable NHN Entertainment Singapore to expand the availability of its gaming services in Southeast Asia and deliver optimized performance to its users.

Doing battle in the US$9 billion Unix server market is not for the timid. Designing a competitive microprocessor is a costly business, and with the Unix market seemingly in permanent decline it's easy to see why smaller players might drop out.



Differences in the goals of the business and IT teams within a company can cause problems as each tries to achieve success in this new age of business computing, according to Dane Anderson, Vice President, Research Director and Region Manager Serving CIOs, Forrester Research.

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter's approach.

Trying to plan a data center that can accommodate needs for 10 years has always been a challenge, with the classic fallback being to just overbuild everything to allow for any conceivable future.

IO, a provider of software-defined data centers, has launched its Asia Pacific operations with Singapore as regional headquarters.

To date, the company has US$30 million invested in the building which was perviously a manufacturing site for Seagate. This is divided into 140,000 square feet of data center space and 30,000 square feet of office area. IO has 24 employees in Singapore and plans to grow this to roughly 100 by year's end.

Orange Business Services has opened an interactive ‘solution center’ in Hong Kong, following similar customer experience centers in Singapore, Beijing and Tokyo. This is the twelfth addition to the extensive breadth of interactive solution showcase facilities opened in Asia Pacific, including eight new mobile solution centers launched recently.

While most of the conversation about software-defined networks (SDNs) focuses on their impact on the data center -- virtualizing networks to cut hardware and personnel costs, reduce on-site footprints, remove bottlenecks and traffic flow problems and make network management easier -- the true benefit of SDNs may lie outside the data center.

The true value of SDNs may be for managed service providers (MSPs) and for enterprises with multiple branch offices, says Kurt Marko, a networking consultant and analyst.

How SDNs Work