A data centre switch is a network switch that is designed to work within a data centre and is optimized for high availability, extensive scalability, security and performance. It connect servers, storage systems and network devices together and route traffic among them. They are designed to meet the specific demands of large enterprise computing, cloud computing and web applications.
Switch Architecture
A switch has a modular architecture that allows continued expansion as bandwidth requirements grow over time. The switch chassis has multiple slots to hold line cards, each line card containing multiple ports. Switch brands offer a variety of configurations with different port densities on each line card depending on bandwidth needs. For example, a typical 48-port 1G configuration has four 12-port 1G line cards occupying four slots in a four-slot chassis.
As traffic increases, additional line cards can be added to the existing chassis or new chassis can be stacked together without interrupting connectivity. Stackable switches increase port capacity by allowing multiple individual Data Center Switch to be managed as a single logical device through a dedicated stacking interconnect. This helps achieve uniform high-speed connectivity across a large number of ports in a modular and scalable manner.
Switching and Forwarding
Data center switches employ store-and-forward switching to process packets at multi-gigabit wire speeds without dropping or corrupting frames. Incoming packets are examined and validated before being placed in memory buffers. Destined ports are looked up in forwarding tables to determine egress ports. Packets are then scheduled and sent out appropriately with congestion management to optimize utilization.
Advanced switching ASICs allow wire-speed Layer 2/Layer 3 switching and routing of millions of packets per second without any packet loss across thousands of ports in a fully loaded system. Multi-gigabit backplanes connect line cards and ensure over-subscribed uplinks do not become bottlenecks under heavy east-west traffic within the data center network.
Features and Management
Data center switches offer advanced traffic management features to ensure high application performance over congested networks. Hardware-based queue scheduling prioritizes critical workloads while providing fair sharing of bandwidth. Synchronous Ethernet and Precision Time Protocol deliver microsecond level timing accuracy critical for financial trading systems.
Integrated multi-VLAN capabilities with Layer 3 routing allow logical segmentation of traffic into multiple broadcast domains for security and manageability. Trunking enables aggregation of multiple physical ports into a single logical port. Port profiles simplify configuration of common settings across groups of ports.
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