Networking Nuggets and Security Snippets

Jon Oltsik

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Observations from Interop

Good activity and a glimpse of the future

By joltsik on Wed, 04/28/10 - 8:18pm.

I'm here in the wasteful energy capital of the world, Las Vegas, for Interop. After back-to-back meetings and a few strolls across the show floor, here are some of my observations:

1. Extreme is demonstrating a 40gbE switch in its booth and is boasting an amazing $1000 per port pricing. Others will follow very soon. To me, this aggressive pricing will certainly accelerate the transition to a converged data center network. Goodbye Fibre Channel and Infiniband, hello Ethernet everywhere.

2. Lots of introductions of virtual networking appliances. Will these replace network hardware? I don't think so but I do envision a pervasive hybrid model by the end of 2011.

3. VC darling Arista is highlighting its new aggregation switch. Frankly, I don't get it. Even if Arista switches offer the high performance and low latency that the company describes, isn't this just a feature that all the other Ethernet switch vendors will quickly deliver? Does the world really need another Ethernet switching vendor regardless of the pedigree of the founders?

4. What will the network look like in a world of cloud computing? Cisco's borderless network is probably the most complete and well articulated vision.

5. There is a lot of talk about network automation in order to make the network more responsive to the dynamic nature of virtual servers. I get it from an operations perspective but compliance, governance, and security folks are going to be scared to death when you can click and mouse and alter an entire network configuration. I strongly suggest that networking vendors review ITIL best practices for configuration and change management before they get too carried away with making the network more dynamic.

6. Security appliance vendor Barracuda may do a good job with manufacturing and distribution, but hiring booth babes is rather tacky, even in Vegas.

7. John McHugh is a perfect fit for Brocade and its vision for a data center fabric for all connectivity.

More tomorrow, I have to walk through the cigarette smoke Casino and meet some friends for dinner.

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About Networking Nuggets and Security Snippets

Jon Oltsik is a principal analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group responsible for the networking and security services at ESG. Prior to joining ESG, Jon was the founder and principal of Hype-Free Consulting. Mr. Oltsik previously served as VP of Marketing & Strategy at GiantLoop Network where he managed all marketing activities and defined the company’s strategic vision. Jon was also a Senior Analyst at Forrester Research where he covered a wide range of infrastructure and IT topics. In this role, he was frequently quoted in business journals, including the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and the New York Times, and was also the recipient of a prestigious "best research" award for his breakthrough report, "The Internet Computing Voyage."