* The network access impact of data center consolidation
In the last newsletter, we discussed some of the issues associated with data center consolidation. Today, we are going to look at the impact that data center consolidation has on the network access that is required into the consolidated data centers.
Taking servers out of branch offices and placing them into centralized data centers means increased WAN traffic. For example, in order for employees who work in branch offices to access the centralized servers, traffic that used to transit the branch office LAN now transits the WAN. This increased WAN traffic drives the need for higher speed access links into the consolidated data centers.
As a company consolidates its data centers, it typically does not reduce the amount of application traffic. Since the same amount of application traffic is flowing to fewer data centers, this also has the affect of requiring higher speed access into the consolidated data centers.
In addition to driving the need for higher speed access, data center consolidation also drives the need for data center access that has higher availability. This follows because if one of the consolidated data centers were unavailable due to a network outage it affects a larger number of users than would have been affected prior to data center consolidation.
We would like your input on this topic. In particular, what technologies and network designs are you using for high-speed access into your data centers? Are you exclusively using the large incumbent carriers, or do you feel comfortable using less established players?
