For more than 10 years, campus network architecture has existed in three tiers: access, aggregation, and core. While this structure has worked in the past, it is particularly ill-suited to the networking goals and requirements of the future (and, often, the present as well). This structure is static, hardware-bound, non-programmable, and requires manual box-by-box management. These constraints result in complexity and inflexibility, which mean traditional networks are not optimized for next-generation services, virtualization, or secure segmentation. This incompatibility of structure and desired business outcomes necessitates a modernized approach to campus networks.
A Changing Landscape
The entire networking market is undergoing fundamental transformation, and campus networks are not immune to this. This shift has many dimensions: from traditional networks to software-defined networks, from manual operation to network automation, and from closed networking to open networking.
A new campus architecture needs to reduce network complexities and automate operations. It needs to interconnect multi-site campuses to appear as a single network. The new campus network needs to be dynamic and flexible enough that can easily enable new network services, accelerate service deployment velocity and improve network security with micro-segmentation.
How to Modernize
So what is the best way to modernize an existing campus aggregation network? Adding a next-generation network layer over existing deployments to modernize network operation can be an effective solution that minimizes disruption. This solution slices the network into security zones (i.e., segments) and inserts security services like firewalls according to defined policies. This solution implements “intelligence” in the aggregation network to provide pervasive visibility and control over legacy equipment. The overlay solution saves significant capital expenses and operational expenses. It also extends life of existing technology and yet adds significant and important new capabilities.
This campus aggregation networking solution is fabric-based software-defined network. It’s an adaptive fabric that can be overlaid across campus sites and managed like one virtual network. Contact us today for more details about the next generation campus aggregation solution.
