Networking Solutions

Storage Consolidation for Data Centre Efficiency

One trend in the data centre that has shown consistent progress is the convergence of switching fabrics. Servers in data centres are typically connected to three different network areas: Storage, TCP/IP and Cluster networking. Because these areas have different requirements, different switching fabrics are sometimes used: Fibre Channel, Ethernet and InfiniBand. An important aspect of Ethernet’s value proposition is the possibility of using it in all network areas to provide servers with a single connection. Consolidating to an Ethernet fabric greatly reduces the amount of equipment required in the data centre and drastically lowers both power consumption and the overall cost of administration.

The Benefits of Ethernet for IP-based Storage Networking

As enterprise data centres continue to deploy more powerful processors and clustering for compute capacity, the need for terabits of storage capacity is becoming standard. IP storage solutions such as NAS, iSCSI, and FCoE, can all benefit from the high-bandwidth, low-latency, and scalability of 10 GbE, including:

• Consolidation of native SANs over a common high-speed, low-latency 10 GbE backbone.
• Elimination of congestion and I/O bottlenecks.
• Disaster recovery and remote site backup operations rely on the optimal performance of the intervening IP and Ethernet network.

High-throughput, high-availability and low-latency are crucial requirements of the IP storage network, which can readily be provided by the IBM System Networking BNT family of blade and top-of-rack Ethernet switches.

Networking Devices:

• IBM BNT RackSwitch G8264
• IBM BNT RackSwitch G8124E
• IBM BNT RackSwitch G8052
• IBM BNT Virtual Fabric 10G Switch Module (US)

Learn about IBM Storage Solutions

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