Traditional Network

Introduction

CTEC Solutions will partner with your business for success by leveraging best practice methodology under relevant process definitions. This allows for the positive completion of any necessary preparation to allow success for latter stages through design and planning, through to deployment, operations and optimisation.  

We realise that your business may not require the full suite of end-to-end (E2E) process engagements, in which case we provide option for tailored solutions to suit your requirements, whether they be change, KTLO/BAU specifics or design and transformation centric. At CTEC Solutions we are cognisant of the need to be agile so can do as little or as much of the E2E as your business needs, in order to drive technology innovation. 

In respect of traditional Networks, we have expert knowledge and experience in both Green-Field and Brown-Field deployments, so you get in touch today to see how we can help! 
 

Traditional Networks

Across most industry sectors the most widespread uptake of IT Networks has been with that of what we call “Traditional Networks”. These are the 3-tier Hierarchical based environments, containing demarcation for Core, Distribution/Aggregation and Access. Policy control and FHRP functionality is applied at the Aggregation so STP reliance is from Access up to the adjacent layer. 

In respect of Campus based networks with North-South traffic patterns the 3-tier is moderately scalable. With oversubscription ratios being at around 20:1, uplinks at bundled 1Gbps and access for 100/1000Mbps. Again applying the same to Datacentre Networks (DCN), they are generally accepted as being scalable. However, with decreased oversubscription requirements, down to 4:1, 3:1 and even Nonblocking.  With moves utilising Fabric and bundled uplinks to 10/40/100Gbps, and access for 1/10Gbps. These are now being overshadowed with Clos based topologies, which are largely 2 tier and are hugely scalable, with multi-stage options such as 2 Stage and 5 Stage. 

With DCN environments thirst for even greater East-West traffic scalability, and with requirements of Cloud and SDN workflows the 3-tier traditional architecture does not have enough horizontal scale-out capability. This is mainly due to the architecture being more reliant on a few centralised high capacity, processing, forwarding nodes with high level device resiliency. Unlike, the two tier SDN based environments of today traditional Networks are not application centric and rely on the more traditional constructs of VLANs and Subnets, along with a reliance on STP. 

Benefits of Next Generation Network Architectures: 

• Elimination of traditional dependencies with protocols such as a STP 
• Extremely high levels of L2 scalability with robust layer 3 using VXLAN 
• Extremely high levels of Scale-out capability 
• Automation and Orchestration  
• Centralised management plane with full policy control at all layers 
• Full non-blocking oversubscription  
• Huge bandwidth and throughput gains for workloads 
• Northbound API integration to third party systems 
• Ability to fully integrate NFV for VMM 
• Design for failure based on deterministic response 

Though you may not realise it your Network may be in need of some attention. Don’t get left behind, let CTEC Solutions advise you on how best to innovate and move forward to a Next-Generation Network Architecture!