Data Center Top-of-Rack Architecture Design

Data centers are undergoing a fundamental shift. Application developments and server virtualization are causing IT to seek a more flexible, efficient, and available infrastructure that can dynamically adapt to the needs of the business. To achieve this vision, data center architectures are changing to become more modular, so that data center managers can easily add racks of servers by adding racks that are precabled to a ToR switch and then connected to aggregation layer switches using fiber-optic cables. To deliver the necessary bandwidth, servers will transition to 10 Gigabit Ethernet in the short term for server and inter switch connectivity.