In Jim Metzler’s recent Network World article “The shifting LANscape”, he describes how for most of the decade that began in 2000 Local Area Network (LAN) solution design was rather staid, but this situation is changing dramatically.

The biggest cause of Local Area Network (LAN) changes is due to the increase in the deployment of wireless local area network solutions (WLAN) due to increased distribution of high speed WLAN technologies and the proliferation of wireless handheld devices, such as smart phones.

With this increase in WLAN, there is now an interesting array of data center network solutions and options available, such as how much intelligence resides in the access points, the physical vs. virtual nature of the controllers and the degree to which the wireless LAN integrates with the wired LAN from both a network and network management solution.

Force10 Networks recently unveiled data center core and top-of-rack switches that mark the first offering of high-density 40/100G Ethernet taking data center network solutions into the zettabyte era according to Network World.

Exactly how big is a zettabyte? Most major switch vendors offer exabyte-scale data center networks. An exabyte is equal to 1 million terabytes or 1 billion gigabytes. The zettabyte is equal to 1,000 exabytes taking data center networks to new heights.

Check out Monday, May 31st for a discussion of the changes within Local Area Network Solutions (LAN).

The final piece of the puzzle in “ABCs of Cloud Computing” by Mal Postings is “C” for cost. In terms of cost models, cloud computing appears to be moving away from a fixed capital cost base toward a variable operations-based or usage cost consumption model.

Organizations will continue to face the same question on whether the short-term benefits (reduced up-front capital costs) outweigh the long-term real financial returns. Organizations should develop a total cost of ownership business case for cloud computing that compares the one-off costs to the recurring costs.

Cloud computing service fees are also relatively new and vary by provider. Organizations may see:

• Subscription-based
• Usage-based
• Advertising-based
• Success- or ROI – based

Please check back on Friday, May 27th as we close out the month of May with several interesting posts on data center network solutions.

In Mal Postings article on CIO Insight titled “ABCs of Cloud Computing”, he provides a breakdown of the key considerations of cloud computing. Today, we will focus on “B” – business benefits and risks.

The article points out the need for a deep understanding of the business benefits and risks of cloud computing to make the right service decision. Here are some of the benefits of cloud computing:

• Easy, fast and low-cost deployments
• A payment system based on usage
• Elastic scalability and improved asset use
• New opportunities for cross-company community collaborations
• Renewed focus on the strategic areas of the IT function

As with any IT or business decision there are risks to be evaluated with cloud computing:

• Compliance, security and privacy
• Business continuity and resiliency
• End-to-end service management
• Integration and orchestration across multiple providers
• Provider choice

The final “ABC of Cloud Computing” is cost. Check back Wednesday May 25th for this discussion.

Many organizations are still gaining an understanding of cloud computing especially in the current market as cloud computing has experienced a huge investment growth. A recent article on CIO Insight by Mal Postings title “ABCs of Cloud Computing” helps breakdown the decision points for cloud computing.

The first evaluation point for cloud computing is architecture. There are two main considerations:

• IT functions need to move away from a business process engineering view which is based on the principle that assumes processes are all largely performed within an organizations’s boundary. Instead, a new three-tier model will emerge: Software as a Service (SaaS), Industry as a Service and Enterprise Services. Each of these tiers are supported by Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS)
• The following new technical considerations will rise in importance: connections to third-party service providers, new approaches to identity and access management and encryption security.

Check back Monday, May 23th for a discussion on the “B” in “ABCs of Cloud Computing” – business benefits.

As cloud computing continues to grow and becomes a real sourcing option for more and more organizations, Evolving Solutions wants to guide clients through the process of determining the right cloud computing service for their organizations.

Below are some top trends in cloud computing from a recent eWeek article titled “10 Cloud Computing Trends That Are Rapidly Catching On.”

• Continued use of the public-private hybrid
• Cloud computing deployments will be fast and furious – companies want the multitenancy and elasticity benefits.
• Integration for cloud computing and SAAS applications will no longer exist for end users

On Friday, May 20th we’ll start a discussion on the ABCs of Cloud Computing.

The huge investment growth in cloud computing technology has created a new sourcing option for organizations to consider. As an early leader in the move to data center virtualization, Evolving Solutions continues to demonstrate forward-thinking by, now, helping clients to evaluate their cloud computing needs.

Research by Gartner points out the importance to IT service organizations to be mindful and resist ignoring the cloud computing sourcing option to prevent service clients from reaching out to other firms directly and to take advantage of possible lower cost structures that cloud computing can provide.

When looking to source cloud computing Gartner in its article “Four Risky Issues When Outsourcing for Cloud Services” advises that clients look to a firm that can address and answer authentication requirements, provide clarity around all cloud computing options, assist with a thorough business case analysis and provide risk analysis of cloud computing technology and services.

Check back Wednesday, May 18th for information on how cloud computing trends.

To conclude, the Yankee Group in its article “Data Center Evolution is Dependant on a Network Fabric” provides data center network managers the following criteria to use when evaluating a choice between network solution providers:

• Simplicity is the key to achieving fast, scalable and economically efficient data centers. Look for a vendor that fundamentally simplifies the data center architecture.
• Chose a vendor with a history of technology innovation in other markets.
• It is critical to use a data center network solution provider that provides an open environment and has partnerships within all related technologies.

As the Yankee Group points out from the start,  data center virtualization is the single biggest IT transformation of this generation. A fabric architecture is critical to build a network that is scalable, simplified and able to meet the challenges of the virtual data center, so it is important to evaluate vendors on criteria specific to a fabric.

Starting Monday, May 16^th we will focus in on the fast growing technology of cloud computing.

Today, we continue with the Yankee Group’s discussion of the business benefits to the data center network from switching to a fabric architecture. The findings below are taken from their article “Data Center Evolution is Dependant on a Network Fabric”.

Business benefits:

• Better ROI for virtualization technology due to fabric architecture enabling East-West movement of data
• A reduction in network devices required since all ports are active, reducing the capital outlay
• Lower operational costs from fewer managed devices and much fewer device interactions
• Better application performance since application traffic can traverse the network much faster than with a traditional data center network architecture

On Friday, May 13th we will cover the final topic in this data center series – what to look for in network provider.

The Yankee Group in their article titled “Data Center Evolution is Dependant on a Network Fabric”, points to the following technical benefits from implementing a data center network that has fabric architecture versus a traditional hierarchical architecture.

• Better data center network performance from fewer packet processing steps, plus the elimination of Spanning Tree Protocol (STP)
• A simplified data center network design from creating a flatter network
• A data center network that is faster to scale and more viable to scale

Data center network fabric architecture at its core provides simplicity to the data center network in terms of number of devices, interactions and packet processing.

Check back on Wednesday, May 11th for continued discussion of the business benefits for the data center network from fabric architecture.