About to invest in a brand new spine and leaf system? Hold on—there’s a better way.
The days of guestimating your growth are over. Plexxi HCN hyper-converged networking allows you to build the data center you need now, and grow your network as you grow your business.
Building a network in the traditional spine and leaf model requires business owners to think ahead to where they might be in three to five years. Considering how much and how quickly they expect the company to grow is a key factor in determining how large to build the network. The risk is undersizing, which might force the early purchase of a new system to accommodate growth, and likely leads to an initial investment of an oversized, costly backbone switch.
Traditional spine-and-leaf three tier network topology design
Plexxi makes the growth question irrelevant, creating a converged, single-tier network connecting computers with a daisy chain of software-driven switches. Plexxi Switches are built on industry standard, off-the-shelf hardware, offered in 10GB and 40GB Ethernet models. Start with what you need—a single rack of computers perhaps. To grow your footprint, simply add more switches. The switches form a mesh allowing all of the devices in your environment to communicate with each other.
The traditional backbone / core switch in a spine and leaf system is a huge chunk of change. Eliminating that element alone will more or less pay for the Plexxi HCN system. It also allows you to only pay for what you need at the time, which can be significant for many companies just starting out.
The beauty of Plexxi is its ease of set up and flexibility to scale, which saves time, manpower, and money. Any IT specialist can run it right out of the box, and Plexxi Switches can be implemented on as few as three or four computers, for example, a small satellite office that needs to connect to the main branch in order to run the phone system and other corporate software. However, it was designed with large-scale systems in mind, especially those experiencing rapid, exponential growth such as telecommunication companies.
The Plexxi system is made up of three elements: Switches, Control, and Connect, the latter two forming the workflow automation and management software for the switches. Plexxi Switches are especially appropriate in systems that utilize HPE SimpliVity and Nutanix—if you’re running Nutanix, you can manage Plexxi directly from the Nutanix desktop.
At Edge Solutions we’ve been working with Plexxi for a little more than six months, but the solution has already proven itself. And so far, it’s the only technology of its kind on the market—we expect it to join our list of next big network disruptors. For more information on Plexxi and how Edge Solutions can help, contact us today.