Unveils virtualization-optimized switching strategy; storage story weak
Enterasys is the latest switching vendor to throw its hat into the next-generation data center ring, intent on taking on Cisco, Brocade, Juniper and others in the 10G and above converged Ethernet fabric fray. Enterasys’ differentiator is the ability of its switches to execute and enforce application- and virtual machine-specific policies on non-vendor-specific applications and VMs.
Indeed, the Enterasys plans hinges on nonexclusive partnerships and multivendor inclusion whereas Cisco, Juniper and others have spelled out a specific set of partners they are working with to flesh out and accelerate their strategies. And in Cisco’s case, its Unified Computing strategy is optimized around its own blade and rackmount servers, and VMware hypervisors.
Juniper is deeply entrenched with IBM on its Project Stratus data center and cloud fabric plan, while Brocade – like Cisco’s NX-OS – is unveiling a new operating system for its switches that tightly integrate LAN and SAN services and operations.
Storage is one element that’s lacking in the Enterasys plan. The company had no storage access or converged LAN/SAN fabric story – its plan focuses pretty squarely on policy-based administration, configuration, operation and management of VMs, and support of servers and hypervisors from multiple vendors.
The only acknowledgement of storage in the Enterasys plan is that it’s “iSCSI optimized,” provides packet level auditing and will coexist with FibreChannel deployments.
But the virtualization plan is seems pretty thorough. Enterasys says its S-series switches have been recently enhanced to eliminate the need to associate network policies to specific switch ports, Enterasys says. This allows any application running on any server to be dynamically authenticated and assigned policies that are used for prioritization, QoS, bandwidth allocation and access control, regardless of the switch port it is connected to.
This eliminates the need for network administrators to associate physical switch connectivity and applications, Enterasys says. It is similar to the virtual machine profile mapping capabilities announced by Cisco and Brocade.
Entersys says its S-series switches can also automate the operation and configuration of physical and virtual switches within the data center. This ostensibly allows the network administrator to control the operation of software-based virtual switches resident on servers with the data center.
Enterasys says it will comply with emerging IEEE standards for vSwitch/physical switch interaction – standards that address offloading particular functions to physical switches and enabling virtual port aggregation, among other capabilities.
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