UCS has fundamentally changed the way people will deploy and manage compute and networks. One key innovation is the VMFex. For now, the VMFex is compatible with vSphere and KMS. Support for Hyper-V is just around the corner, though for this discussion we’ll take a VMware centric view.
We have been planning a few large high density virtual desktop deployments lately for some banks and had to think carefully about how to scalability manage the networking. During the process we crystallised our thoughts around where and why Cisco are heading with FEX ports and we like the look of where its heading – its very elegant. It’s a long post but hang in there, there is lot of background that is important
Before we look at how UCS and VMFex is changing the way we look at networks, it’s worth looking back and reminding ourselves how virtualisation changed the network when VMware took over the data centre.