For the longest time, networks were built in three tiers: access, aggregation, and core. This made a lot of sense back in the old days because of network technology limitations and traffic patterns.

Server virtualization is the big reason for going flat. The big benefit of a flat network is its flexibility. A layer 2 network is plug and play, requiring no reconfiguration or change in IP addresses ...

And in a 32-way two-tier spine/leaf topology, this translates into a potentially flat network of 111K ports, and assuming 10 VMs per port, 1M VMs! On the hardware side, integrated optics provide ...

Next generation datacenters are evolving quickly. Bandwidth growth and the need for scalability appears to be unstoppable, yet network designs must find a way to manage these demand costs effectively.