CEO Focus
DCS: Do you see a long term future for pure Fibre Channel networks?
HW: Fibre channel offers customers very high bandwidth with very low latency. As Ethernet continues to mature, it will grow to meet the needs of the majority of customers who use Fibre Channel today. While Fibre Channel will always be used for the most demanding applications, Ethernet will be the best technology for the majority of customers.
DCS: And do you see Infiniband making anything of a comeback in the mainstream space?
HW: Infiniband will continue to be used as a high performance system interconnect for HPC (high- performance computing) applications, but as Ethernet becomes faster and at a lower cost and lossless, it will become the interconnect of choice for convergence. Infiniband also will become faster over time, but it does not enjoy the benefits of volume, meaning it will continue to be an expensive interconnect relative to Ethernet.
DCS: Are there any other networking protocols to watch out for?
HW: Defining and implementing industry standard protocols is critical to the future of networking. Force10 is a significant participant in the development of networking protocols as John DAmbrosia, of Force10’s CTO office, was the chairman of the IEEE committee that created the 40GB and 100GB standard. Additionally, John was recently voted to be appointed the chairman of the 400G GBE standards committee. John’s participation in these committees represents Force10’s commitment to leading the industry with innovation.
February/March 2011
www.datacentresols.com | DATA CENTRE SOLUTIONS | 23
DCS: Where does Force10 sit within the whole virtualisation momentum?
HW: As a leading networking vendor focused on Cloud Computing, Force10 is excited to see the virtualisation trend continue. Over the last ten years, the industry has been focused on server and storage virtualisation. In 2010, Force10 led the industry by announcing the Open Automation Framework, which enables the network to become a key part of the dynamic computing stack in virtualised environments. Open Automation enables the network to automatically change to meet the needs of a cloud computing environment.
DCS: And with the Cloud arriving, how does Force10 position itself – how can it help end users take advantage of this new development?
HW: Over the past couple years as cloud computing has developed, most of the focus has been on how servers and storage devices support cloud
computing. Today, customers are learning how critical it is for the network to be part of the cloud computing infrastructure as well. Force10 is leading the industry with offerings such as Open Automation to support the needs of Cloud Computing.
DCS: And are there any pitfalls with either virtualisation and/or the Cloud that of which end users need to be made aware?
HW: One of the biggest issues customers are realising with virtualisation environments is the added complexity. In the past, customers were dealing with server sprawl. Although virtualisation technology has helped customers address the server sprawl issue, they are now experiencing similar problems with VM (virtual machine) sprawl. This proliferation of VMs is adding significant complexity to managing data centres. Consequently, customers need to look for ways to mitigate this complexity. The best
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