The Great Divide: It’s time to think differently about access and data center networks!

Although LANs have been around for over 30 years, they haven’t stopped evolving. In particular, as data centers have consolidated and branch offices multiplied, the divergent user demands for data center and branch-office (access) networks are driving the need for IT professionals to design, build, and manage each network along fundamentally divergent principles. Data center networks, which interconnect virtualized server farms and deliver applications to remote users, require massive scalability and performance. Access networks, which seamlessly link wired and wireless users, require a common set of management, configuration, and security policies to support an increasingly dynamic and mobile user population. And a key characteristic of these evolving access networks is the increased preponderance of wireless—a disruptive technology that’s changing how organizations think about, and use, networking