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The speculation around the industry centers on who will buy the Nortel enterprise business, with all eyes focusing on Avaya and Siemens Enterprise. While I have no inside information on the matter, I doubt that either would buy Nortel’s enterprise assets since they don’t need them, and Nortel customers, channel partners and distributors have been defecting in mass over the past six plus months. The Nortel maintenance business does have value thanks to a steady stream of revenue. The bottom line for Nortel customers is that if you haven’t started to develop a migration plan, then you best get started.

In this Lippis Report I provide IT leaders with guidance on navigating network infrastructure expenditures during challenging economic cycles such as the current economy. With Nortel’s liquidation, now is the best time to question the mixed network vendor approach to diversity and redundancy as some IT leaders, pressured by lower capital budgets, seek to procure infrastructure from low cost providers as a means to make ends meet. I take the position that a common network based upon mixed network supplier platforms paradoxically increases risk, reduces network availability by increasing complexity, which increases Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) and operational cost, the highest cost component in total cost of ownership (TCO). Also a mixed network vendor environment restricts design options, increases security vulnerabilities and limits the ability to optimize application performance. A single network platform supplier is recommended for mission critical operations as this approach reduces overall TCO and complexity, increases design options, and simplifies trouble isolation, hastening resolution while optimizing operational resources. Let me explain.

The market crash of 2008 and subsequent deep recession modified business behavior and processes permanently. While the current downturn is mild compared to the Great Depression, the two periods share a common attribute, that being personal and business behavior was significantly modified and for the Great Depression this modification lasted for an entire generation. As such, nearly all business leaders have focused on streamlining business processes during the fall 2008 and winter 2009 with an eye toward reduced operational cost and preparedness for the upturn. It’s becoming clear that capital-spending behavior on IT will be similar to the period between 2000 and 2002 when capital spending on IT fell sharply from $160B to $88B, according to the US Census Bureau. Capital spending during the 2003 upturn did not fund pre-2002 IT projects, but was invested in automating new business processes via IT projects; the same is occurring now.

During this economic cycle winning IT projects include HD video conferencing, collaboration, virtualization, network security and all IT projects which reduce corporate operational spending. For example, it’s highly likely that business travel will not resume to the levels of the pre-2008 crash as business and IT leaders reap the benefits of travel cost reduction, improved business processes and the avoidance of executive wear and tear, thanks to HD video conferencing and collaboration. In fact many business and IT leaders are starting to label collaboration and knowledge sharing IT projects as “Strategic Initiatives” as they are key enablers to post-crash streamlined business processes.

A best practice among IT leaders during this and previous downturns has been the implementation of IT project pilots. While IT pilots are not new, they take on a different priority and meaning during down-turns in that they offer an IT organization the time to

develop skills, technology understanding, time to assure business leaders of their business processes, automation benefit and planning for massive roll-outs when corporate conditions are met. The key condition IT leaders are looking for is revenue growth and visibility as the indication to commence rapid corporate-wide deployment. In short, pre-2008 crash follow-on IT projects will be difficult to fund as a new set of business priorities is being set and institutionalized within new business processes.

There are many implications for the above dynamics but two, in particular are acute. First IT organizations will increasingly be directed top down versus bottom up, as business leaders press IT leaders for automation and corresponding operational results. Second, as more real time and collaboration services are deployed and embedded into business processes, corporations will be dependent upon their enterprise networks to the same degree if not more as retailers depend on Point of Sale (PoS) for revenue and business intelligence. In short, as the economy emerges from its current recession the enterprise network will emerge as the strategic business platform. In a subsequent Lippis Report we will dive into high availability and risk mitigation associated with mixed versus single vendor networks. We come down on single for many reasons.

The following recommendations provide business and IT leaders with guidance in navigating corporate network infrastructure expenditures during challenging economic cycles with an eye toward maximizing performance and minimizing total cost of ownership.

Recommendations

As during the 2000-2002 dotcom bust, many start-up operations and large firms too entered chapter 11 and 7 liquidation. The same is occurring now with Nortel being the most obvious example. There is a consolidation phase occurring in the networking industry now as evidenced by Foundry Networks merging with Brocade, HP reorganizing its ProCurve group into its TSG organization, IBM tightening its relationships with Brocade and Juniper Networks, Force 10 Networks’ merger with Turin Networks, etc. These reorganizations put in question product priorities, research and development levels and increase IT risk.

During down economic periods most IT organizations choose to procure equipment and services from independent, financially secure firms who are in charge of their own destiny; the current economic period has shown acceleration in this buying behavior. Clearly Cisco is unique with over $30B of cash and equivalents; either the number 1 or 2 market share position in its strategic markets, innovation that has only accelerated during the downturn and seasoned executive management that has proven it can navigate difficult markets. There are others such as HP, IBM with its partners, and now an enterprise re-engaged 3Com/H3C that are enterprise-network contenders. With this in mind and based upon the above discussion the following recommendations are offered for consideration:

• To reduce risk of network downtime and operational spend consider a single strategic network platform partner rather than a multi-vendor solution.
• Avoid procuring perceived low cost products for low functionality places in the network such as access as this tends to increase operational cost, the largest cost component in TCO.
• Consider selecting a network platform supplier that possesses an architectural view of high availability. Add additional weight in the vendor selection process to a supplier who conducts large-scale deployment validation and testing to achieve higher availability for an entire network.
• Consider the single network platform approach for not only dual backbone scenarios but for other mission critical network applications such as branch office and data center deployments.
• Consider equipment sparing, device high availability features and network design options as components to deliver a high availability network.
• Consider networking suppliers with the financial stamina to not only withstand periods of economic downturn but who will enjoy increased market share and customer scenarios to guide its research and development investments.

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There has been a growing recognition about the critical importance of Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity. This is a decade marked by catastrophic natural disasters and man-made disruptions such as terrorist events. It’s also a decade where we have seen the impact on business of less publicized, yet significant disruptions such as labor disputes, broad-scale internet outages, civil disorder and threats of cyber attacks. For impacted businesses, the immediate challenge is to cope with lost or impaired communications with employees, vendors and customers. Much of the planning for new events has begun to focus on communications continuity as a key element of business.

Download this paper to see how it will help IT leaders understand how Avaya can help plan and execute a solid approach to communication continuity preparedness.

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The Cisco® Catalyst® 6500 is deployed in the most critical parts of enterprise and service provider networks. Having such a vital position in the network, the Cisco® Catalyst® 6500 must provide the highest levels of availability. To achieve these levels of availability network engineers employ both network-wide technologies as well as device-level redundancy. This includes network designs with redundant switches, redundant paths using Cisco EtherChannel® technology, First Hop Redundancy Protocols, the Cisco Virtual Switching System (VSS) and of course redundant system components including power supplies, fans and Supervisor modules.

This paper discusses the Redundant Supervisor technologies for the Cisco® Catalyst® 6500. These technologies have evolved over time from nonstateful, Route Processor Redundancy mode (RPR) to the current Stateful Switchover (SSO) mode with Nonstop Forwarding (NSF).

To understand how to build high available networks with SSO and NSF download this white paper.

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The major spring event that is now shaping the industry was Cisco’s UCS or unified computing system announcement that has placed Cisco into the computing industry and ushered in the unified fabric market. Clearly HP and IBM were not and are still not happy with Cisco entering into their space and have started to respond. IBM has become closer to Brocade and Juniper while HP has increased its relationship with Microsoft to bolster its unified communications and collaboration offerings. I offer pros and cons to the most important spring announcements.

HP & Microsoft Team Up on UC and Collaboration:

My take with a HP TSG focus:

+ Huge announcement with HP entering into the UC & Collaboration space with MSFT; instant credibility gained

+ Excellent ProCurve pull through sales opportunity

+ HP, IBM and Cisco now compete at Datacenter and UC + Collaboration markets eliminating a major HP hole.

+ Excellent demo(s) with HP + MSFT being able to credibly focus on communications enablement of business processes

- No UC & Collaboration specific features/attributes associated with proCurve products during the announcement

- Questions of scale need to be addressed as OSC R2 is still immature from a number of end-points and multi-site reliability points of view

- HP is hostage to MSFT UC & Collaboration initiatives, i.e., HP does not control development and MSFT is fighting huge, multiple battles

Avaya’s Aura

Avaya launched Aura, which is a device that uses SIP to connect multiple vendors’ phones, PBXs, IP telephony and applications into a streamlined enterprise communications system. My assessment is:

+ Great use of SIP as a way to connect disparate communication systems into one SIP cloud

+ Simplifies mixed vendor communication environments and an excellent way to provide Nortel customers with a migration path toward Avaya

+ Cost reduction thanks to significant WAN, mobile and bridge cost elimination plus centralized communication management yielding operational dividend.

+ Great application integration environment enabling facebook, google, et al., screen pops throughout an organization

+ Mobile and office phone integration

++ Reduces short term facilities cost and provides long term application integration/business productivity advantage

+/- Integration into LiveMeeting, SameTime, Adobe Connect Professional and Avaya Web Conferencing, but needs stronger collaboration & social networking offering

- Requires IT staff to be proficient in SIP & application integration

- Multi-vendor management is sparse

- Needs better UC client support

3Com/H3C Re-Enters The Enterprise Market

3Com under its H3C global brand and new executive management, which includes Ron Sege, President & COO, Alan Kessler, President Tipping Point, Eric A. Benhamou, Chairman, among others, are rebuilding its distribution and partner channels to move its full portfolio of switching, routing, UC, security and mobility solutions to the enterprise market. H3C sees a behavior change in enterprise IT spending that values green, cost efficiency and high performance networking and seeks to be a major supplier to this market. My assessment is:

+ $1.3B of review with operations around the globe

+ Experienced executive management who knows how to execute

+ Full portfolio of switching, routing, UC, mobility and security products for enterprise and data center solutions

+ Low cost basis thanks to Huawei JV

+ New high-end core switch 12500 for data center with 6.6 Tbs of backplane bandwidth, 512 10 GB port density, non-blocking architecture that was designed to support FCoE, 40 and 100 Gbs

+ Brand new approach to network management H3C Intelligent Management Center with a single point of access to configure and manage the entire portfolio of products

+/- Industry needs to fully vent, discuss and evaluate the new 3Com/H3C to discover its value proposition and measure how well it resonates with the new enterprise market realities

- Needs to build credibility and trust in the enterprise market

- Needs to communicate execution plan and roll out customer testimonials

Voltaire Announces the Vantage 8500 Switch

Voltaire announced a high-end ethernet switch called the Vantage 8500 available in the 2nd half of 2009 that touts 288 non-blocking 10 GB Ethernet ports and 11.5Tbs backplane bandwidth. Key features are Layer 2, CEE, FCoE, Virtualized I/O port, low latency of less than a microsecond and low power of less than 10 W per port. My assessment is:

+ High-end switch from a company that understands high performance with its engineering roots buried in infiniBand

+High density 1 and 10 GB Ethernet with key data center logical features such as CEE and its Voltaire scale out capability, which allows two tiers versus three tiers data center constructs to be deployed

+ Touts $1.2K per 10G port, unique design features that deliver linear scale of performance as the number of ports increase

+ Has been focused in high-end data center market addressing need for high-end core layer 2 switching

+/- Unclear how Vantage’s logical features would connect with existing network vendors, storage and CNA equipment

- A relatively unknown company with $62M of revenues

- Above product claims need independent testing and customer testimonials

Brocade 8000 FCoE Switch

Brocade launched its 8000 ToR (Top of Rack) switch with integrated Fiber Channel switch and 8 ports of FCoE support plus 24 10G Ethernet ports. This is an important announcement as it offers a unified fabric solution from Brocade, albeit a limited approach. My assessment is:

+ Impressed with packaging, FC & Ethernet switching plus 2 CNA adaptors

+ Consistent FC and switch management

+ Non-blocking switch fabric; however this needs to be independently confirmed

+/- 8 GB FC a hedge until 10 GB FC

- Brocade manufactured CNAs and no support for 3rd party CNA adaptors

- FC ports on 8000 means still two cable runs to EoR ethernet switch and FC switch

- Lack of a scalable solution

Cisco’s Non-Stop Innovation

In addition to the above Cisco has been introducing innovations non-stop during the downturn as it prepares its customers for the up turn. For example, it put its channel muscle behind UCS with a major go-to-market strategy at its Partners conference here in Boston last week, launched WebEx Node for ASR 1000 that won Interop Best of Show, launched EnergyWise to reduce IT and non-IT electrical consumption, launched Cisco Unified Communications System Release 7.1 bolstering its video services, offered new phones and UC features, and launched Global Correlation for the ISR and ASA and the Nexus 1K soft switch for virtualized data center environments. Cisco has been relentless in their product expansion aimed at making the Network the next business platform. Close to Cisco and a UCS enabler is VMware’s vSphere 4.0, which promises to usher in large-scale virtualization by providing features previously lacking to virtualize most corporate data center applications.

The crash of 2008 has left its mark not only on the financial systems but also on corporate and personal behavior. It’s becoming clear that corporate behavior will continue to be frugal well after the up turn; in short IT justifications will be rooted in cost avoidance, reduction and productivity improvements. The above IT supplier announcements all focus on new and cost effective methods to either design data centers or deliver collaboration. These two IT projects in particular are high priority on lists of projects from IT leaders as they both offer cost reduction and productivity improvement, which many are planning to exploit as they get ready for the fall economic up turn.

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Avaya Aura Branch Edition (formerly known as Avaya Distributed Office) delivers rich communication, collaboration and mobility capabilities to customer-facing branch offices. Miercom was engaged to conduct a review of the Avaya Aura Branch Edition, which is the next release of the Avaya Distributed Office, R1.2. We focused on the new advanced features, enhancements and functionality available within this release, prior to the launch of the Branch Edition solution. Some of the information contained in this report is based on the previous Avaya Distributed Office evaluation.

To download the test results click here

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Server virtualization, part of the Cisco ® Unified Computing System, leads to significant cost savings, helping organizations address space, power, cooling, and budget constraints. The current global economic climate presents an opportune time to fully utilize the benefits of virtualization technologies beyond the data center to achieve greater cost savings through increasing network utilization and efficiency. Network virtualization simplifies how IT departments manage entire campus networks. It offers management and cost benefits for increasingly complex, consolidated networks. Fortunately, the technologies for virtualizing network services throughout the campus network are mature and well understood. Modern campus network architectures support many services, scalable to hundreds of nodes and thousands of users. Administrators need to segment the campus networks for security and traffic management reasons, and traditional switching solutions are insufficient to meet these needs.

To find out about network virtualization and how your company can benefit from it download this white paper.

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I ran a little experiment using social networking via Twitter to get a pulse on the UF market. I used http://monitter.com. Monitter is a twitter monitor that lets you “monitter” the twitter world for a set of keywords and watch what people are saying. Well, I monitored unified fabric for an entire day, just letting it run. There was not one UF posting, meaning that few are discussing UF. Translation, UF is early to market although there are now UF products and/or support from a wide range of companies including Cisco, HP, IBM, Brocade, Qlogic, Intel, EMC, Sun, Mellanox, Fusion, XSIGO, Emulex and many others.

The fascinating aspect of UF is the simplicity and cost reduction it offers to data center network and storage design. The goal of UF is to consolidate LAN and SAN networks into one. The implication of UF is simplification, meaning that only one network adaptor is needed in a server to support storage, IP and inter-processor-communications (IPC) flows. In short, the expensive Host Bus Adapters (HBAs) are virtualized on a network interface card (NIC) or the server. In some cases all I/O is virtualized with HBA, network and clustering drivers virtualized on the server. Further, only one cable and server connection is needed for both storage and network traffic, which reduces data center server-to-network, and server-to-storage cabling within the rack by over 50%. There is no need for both a storage and network switch; a network switch will suffice, reducing the number of switches by over 50%. UF equates to lower cost, complexity, equipment, power and cooling requirements and increased performance too.

So why haven’t IT departments flocked to deploy UF? It has taken a while to develop all the standards needed to implement UF and in some areas the standards are still under development, but by the end of 2009 UF standards should be ratified. The fall of 2009 should kick-off the UF market with 2010 being the year of wide spread experimentation and data center piloting. UF deployment will be a multi-year rollout with significant revenues generated in 2010.

Unified Fabric Architecture

What’s intriguing about UF is its architecture and attributes of increased server performance and lower cost/complexity. UF is the ability of a switch and host adapter to use the same physical infrastructure to carry different types of traffic that typically have very different traffic characteristics and handling requirements. While most UF is based upon 10Gbs Ethernet as its foundation, Inifiband, thanks to its high data link speeds and low latency is also being used.

UF is comprised of three primary hardware components: a converged network adaptor (CNA), a 10 Gbs Ethernet link, preferably the twin-ax SFP+ variety, and a 10Gbs UF switch that supports storage, inter-processor communications (IPC) and IP data packets. As you can guess this 10Gbs Ethernet link is special as it needs to support storage and IPC traffic flows, which are not forgiving of dropped packets as TCP/IP has been designed. In short, UF calls for ethernet to be partitioned into lossless and lossy logical links that are accommodated by extending the IEEE 802.1Q priority and IEEE 802.3x Pause concepts in what has been named Convergence Enhanced Ethernet (CEE (pronounced “sea”)). The 10Gbs Ethernet UF switches need to ensure strict bandwidth scheduling for storage, IPC and IP traffic, automated configuration and forwarding of lossless and lossy traffic flow, which is the job of Data Center Bridging (DCB). DCB is close to being standardized in IEEE P802.1Qbb, IEEE P802.1Qau and IEEE P802.1Qaz. Just this May, the University of New Hampshire Interoperability Lab hosted a DCB plug fest that demonstrated interoperability between DCB vendors including Cisco, Dell, Qlogic, Intel, NetApp, Fulcrum Microsystems and Finisar.

Three Main Storage Architectures

With three primary storage architectures UF gets a little messy or rich, depending on your perspective. There is iSCSI, Fibre Channel (FC) and InfiniBand (IB). IB is used to connect servers to storage in high-performance data centers as its architecture boasts quality of service, low latency, failover and is scalable from 2 Gbs to 96 Gbs. Most IB implementations are running at 20 Gbs moving to 40 Gbs. FC represents some 20% of all server-storage connections thanks to its B2B link credit mechanism which ensures lossless operation and scales from 1 to 12 Gbs with 2, 4 and now 8 Gbs speeds commercially available. Dell’Oro pegs the FC switch and HBA market at approximately $2.7B. iSCSI utilizes TCP which ensures lossless operation and scales with ethernet from 1 Gbs to 10 Gbs and above. iSCSI is the fastest growing category in the storage market with revenue growth of 76% between 2005 and 2010, according to IDC. IDC forecasts iSCSI to be a $5B market in 2010 representing nearly 20% of the external disk storage market, up from 3% in 2005. These numbers tell the story of why HP bought Left Hand Networks and Dell bought Equal Logic both of whom are iSCSI providers. 10 Gb Ethernet is a boon for UF as it starts to offer the bandwidth to support FC, IB and/or iSCSI storage flows. Over time 40 and 100 Gb Ethernet will be available but with the dominant ethernet speed in data centers being 1 GbS, 10 Gb Ethernet is a sure bet for UF over the next several years.

iSCSI

iSCSI runs over IP today without the need for a special CNA. iSCSI can run over ethernet, IB, ATM, Frame Relay, MPLS, et al. But iSCSI’s reliance on TCP for reliable transport has caused many data center managers to pause, thanks to concerns over jitter, latency and reliability at 1 GbS Ethernet. The vast majority of iSCSI users build separate ethernet networks to support iSCSI and IP traffic with a few segmented the traffic via VLANs. 10 Gbs Ethernet potentially removes the pause as the higher speed may mitigate previous concerns with iSCSI and IP traffic flowing over a single 10Gbs Network Interface Card (NIC). If this pans out, then iSCSI may realize a surge in popularity as it is widely supported by all server concerns. It’s interesting that Solid-State Drive (SSD) innovator Fusion io offers iSCSI over ethernet via a PCI Express adaptor to access its SSD, meaning that the SSD performance leader feels comfortable using iSCSI and ethernet for SSD access.

IB

There are many IB providers such as Voltaire, Mellanox, et al., but a few are using IB as a UF. For example, XSIGO Systems uses IB as a UF, while servers see virtualized NICs and HBAs. The server is completely unaware that it is using IB. The administrator can create vNICs and vHBAs on the I/O Director and these show up as ethernet interfaces or HBAs on the server while it gateways into ethernet and even FC. Accenture Software Utility Services uses XSIGO’s VP780 I/O Director and provides data center services to such firms as Best Buy, Mass Mutual, Continental Airlines, Virgin Blue, JetBlue, Net2Phone, et al., proving IB UF viability. IB is used as a UF construct here connecting servers-storage and server-server links with gateways to ethernet and FC LANs/SANs. IB providers are moving down market too, from their High Performance Computing (HPC) heritage in an effort to broaden IB’s appeal to data center professionals as a UF. There are also proposals for IBoE. However, the bulk of IT suppliers are either offering or announcing FCoE or iSCSI UF solutions.

Fibre Channel Over Ethernet

In the FCoE switch UF market a few companies dominate, those being Cisco Systems and Brocade. Cisco offers its Nexus 5020 FCoE switch while Brocade has recently introduced its 8000 FCoE switch. EMC also provides an FCoE switch, that being the Connectrix NEX-5020 which is the Cisco Nexus 5020. Converged network adapters (CNAs) that combine the functionality of an Ethernet NIC and a FC HBA are available from Emulex, Qlogic, Intel and Brocade. Native FCoE support on NetApp SAN storage arrays have been announced while EMC’s new Symmetrix V-Max supports native FCoE. Look for HDS, IBM, HP, Compellent, Dell, Sun, Pillar, Fujitsu, et al., to announce native FCoE during the fall of ’09. Many of these firms are working with QLogic to use its CNA ASIC on their array controller boards, which would provide native FCoE support and connect directly to 10 Gb Ethernet switches.

Increasing Server Performance

While UF components are becoming available, UF has a large role to play in increasing server performance. With the advent of 10 Gb and soon 40 to 100 Gb Ethernet, networking speeds are now outpacing CPU speeds, which means servers will have to work harder to keep up. When servers participate in network processing it reduces application performance as a large amount of CPU time is spent in the TCP/IP stack to copy data and manage buffers. To increase application performance especially in server-to-server communications and inter-processor communications Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) was developed to allow computers in a network to exchange data in main memory without involving the processor, cache, or operating system of either computer. Further, the IETF developed Internet Wide Area RDMA Protocol (iWARP) as an update to RDMA’s use over the internet.

But alas, there is disagreement on which standard to use: RDMA over ethernet or iWARP over ethernet. For example, Intel boasts that it will support iWARP over ethernet on every motherboard while others support RDMA over ethernet. The reason why this discussion is relevant to UF is that 10 Gbs Ethernet is a fundamental UF technology and thus with current line rates of 10 Gbps and higher, non-RDMA network transfers consume significant amounts of the available memory bandwidth and result in system CPU(s) stalling on memory accesses. In short, RDMA allows servers to keep up with network speeds and since UF is enabled by 10 Gb Ethernet, RDMA needs to be included in a UF solution. The OpenFabrics Alliance, a consortium of IT suppliers, government and corporate IT professionals, is working to deliver a unified, cross-platform, transport-independent software stack for RDMA that is architected for high-performance, low-latency and maximized efficiency. The OpenFabrics software is being bundled in VMware, HP’s BladeServers, Red Hat Linux with a Windows version available for IB. It needs to accelerate its work for FC and iSCSI.

Status and Issues

At this point in time, there is clear momentum behind FCoE as it enjoys the widest support across IT suppliers and it’s likely this momentum will only increase as we enter into the fall of ’09. While there are only a few FCoE switches available, every major ethernet and SAN switch supplier will offer a FCoE switch either by the end of ’09 or early ’10. So for those with FC storage infrastructure it’s time to start experimenting and piloting a small FCoE island to gain skills and comfort with the technology.

There are issues with FCoE too. Currently, there are only two switches to choose from, limiting choice; also where FCoE termination occurs will change over time. FCoE is terminated in the FCoE switch now while over time it will be terminated in Disk Arrays, forcing a transition from FCoE termination in Top of Rack or End of Row switches to Disk Arrays. Over time one can imagine a pure ethernet switch with DCB forwarding FCoE, IPC and IP packets to their destinations. Also there are no RDMA options for FCoE today. Another issue is that FC links can run up to 8 Gbs, which would leave only 2 Gb for IP and IPC traffic. Also there are FCoE switch suppliers such as Brocade who have developed their own CNAs and don’t currently interoperate with 3rd party CNAs.

For those with large investments in IB and strict latency requirements that are only met with IB, IB as a UF is being proved out as Accenture Software Utility Services shows. It’s unclear how far IB will move down market and it’s hard if not foolish to bet against ethernet as a UF transport. IB enjoys the widest RDMA support with the OpenFabrics Alliance supporting Linux, Windows and VMware over IB. Also HP, Sun, IBM and Dell blade server systems all support IB options as their high performance solutions.

iSCSI will benefit from 10 Gb Ethernet and DCB in high performance ethernet switches. In this model a single 10 Gb Ethernet NIC would support both iSCSI and IP traffic with layer 2 or layer 3 segmenting storage and IP traffic flows. For the mass UF market, at this time, it seems that iSCSI and FCoE are the two main options with IB as the UF option in the HPC segment.

A final note. It’s clear that Cisco, HP and IBM are putting their significant weight and influence behind FCoE. However, FCoE is a core component of Cisco’s Unified Computing System and Cisco has thought through the system level issues associated with integrating computing, networking and storage, which should yield it a learning curve edge on next generation virtualized data center design. In short, Cisco has embraced UF to a much larger extent than its data center competitors, offering a safe harbor in which to experiment with UF and as many technology transitions before, it’s not necessarily the technology but the companies behind them that decide which one wins or loses.

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Contact center decision-makers are focused on helping their company increase operational efficiencies and customer satisfaction. New contact center technologies, labor and market uncertainties are leading organizations to transition to an IP-based, or virtualized, model. This new paradigm removes significant operating expense from an enterprise, vastly simplifies the application and network infrastructure, and facilitates new contact center operating models such as agent off-shoring. These new architectures and operating models can dramatically reduce costs and improve an organization’s responsiveness to marketplace changes. This white paper is based upon years of real-world experience afforded by the Avaya/EDS partnership.

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