Extreme Networks, a provider of converged Ethernet network infrastructures that support data, voice and video for enterprises, has enhanced its network architecture to improve next-gen data centres and clouds.
The enhanced network architecture combines Direct Attach Virtual Machine (VM) switching with Multi-System Link Aggregation (M-LAG) to enable a new M-LAG Direct Attach architecture that addresses high-performance switching for virtualised environments.
The company said that with the emergence of private and public cloud architectures, the networking infrastructure required to support virtualisation.
In addition, the VM mobility associated with shared and dynamic cloud-based resources has become complex due to outmoded network designs based on Spanning Tree.
The enhanced M-LAG Direct Attach architecture addresses this complexity by simplifying network design and scaling performance.
The company said that the ExtremeXOS version 12.5 enables software-loadable support for Direct Attach architecture, network-level support of Virtual Ethernet Port Aggregator (VEPA), and M-LAG across its portfolio of BlackDiamond modular switches and Summit fixed stackable switches.
Extreme Networks senior director of strategy Shehzad Merchant said integrating the M-LAG Direct Attach architecture with the company’s data centre portfolio serves as an important evolution of their Four Pillar data centre strategy for migrating networks from physical to virtual to cloud.
"For the majority of virtualised data centre architectures, the M-LAG Direct Attach architecture eliminates the drawbacks of Spanning Tree while providing the benefits of TRILL (Transparent Interconnect of Lots of Links) without having complete disruption to the network and enormous capital expense," Merchant said.
