New Delhi: Extreme Networks, Inc.,  today announced an enhanced network architecture aimed at boosting performance in next-generation data centers and clouds by combining its Direct Attach™ Virtual Machine (VM) switching with Multi-System Link Aggregation (M-LAG) to enable a new M-LAG Direct Attach architecture that addresses high-performance switching for virtualized environments.

In recent years, cloud computing and the evolving data centers have been the buzzwords for IT and has changed the way organizations acquire and deploy IT products and services. According to IDC, the India Public Cloud Computing market which was at US$ 66.7 million in 2009 is projected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40% over the next five years to 2014. Major growth drivers being bandwidth, Internet service providers, data center hosting players, hardware vendors and system integrators.

“Integrating the M-LAG Direct Attach architecture with Extreme Networks’ data center portfolio serves as an important evolution of our http://www.extremenetworks.com/solutions/datacenter.aspx Four Pillar data center strategy for migrating networks from physical to virtual to cloud,” said Shehzad Merchant, senior director of strategy for Extreme Networks. “For the majority of virtualized data center architectures, the M-LAG Direct Attach architecture eliminates the drawbacks of spanning tree while providing the benefits of TRILL (Transparent Interconnect of Lots of Links) without having complete disruption to the network and enormous capital expense.”

With the emergence of private and public cloud architectures, the networking infrastructure required to support virtualization and the VM mobility associated with shared and dynamic cloud-based resources has become overly complex due to outmoded network designs based on Spanning Tree. Extreme Networks M-LAG Direct Attach architecture addresses this complexity by significantly simplifying network design and scaling performance.

With its high-performance data center solutions, the BlackDiamond® and Summit® switches running the ExtremeXOS® operating system, Extreme Networks now delivers a doubling of performance compared to traditional Spanning Tree architectures and provides a simpler, more cost-effective solution over pre-standard TRILL implementations – all of which would require a rip-and-replace of the existing network. More information about Extreme Networks M-LAG Direct Attach architecture is available with the following white paper.

“Extreme Networks M-LAG Direct Attach data center architecture will greatly help IP-Only to scale services while ensuring redundancy within the network and data center,” said Magnus Öberg, CEO for IP-Only, a premier service provider in Sweden. “With this ExtremeXOS® feature, we decrease complexity in the network compared to other solutions and scale to meet the needs of more demanding virtualized services.”

With the release of ExtremeXOS version 12.5, Extreme Networks enables software-loadable support for Direct Attach architecture, network-level support of Virtual Ethernet Port Aggregator (VEPA), and M-LAG across its portfolio of high-performance BlackDiamond modular switches and Summit fixed stackable switches. Extreme Networks Direct Attach architecture enables the removal of virtual switches from the network, increasing performance, reducing cost and greatly simplifying management of the virtualized environment.