SearchSMBStorage.com has an article on 10 GbE. My team gets a mention. The link is below and on my Press mentions page.
For J. Wolfgang Goerlich, an IT professional at a 200-employee financial services company, making the switch to 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GbE) was a straightforward process. “Like many firms, we have a three-year technology refresh cycle. And last year, with a big push for private cloud, we looked at many things and decided 10 GbE would be an important enabler for those increased bandwidth needs.”
10 Gigabit Ethernet technology: A viable option for SMBs?
http://searchsmbstorage.techtarget.com/news/2240079428/10-Gigabit-Ethernet-technology-A-viable-option-for-SMBs
My team built a Hyper-V grid in 2007-2008 that worked rather nicely at 1 Gbps speeds.We assumed 80% capacity on a network link, a density of 4:1, and an average of 20% (~200 Mbps) per vm. In operation, the spec was close. We had a “server as a Frisbee” model that meant non-redundant networking. This wasn’t a concern because if a Hyper-V host failed (3% per year) it only impacted up to four hosts (%2 of the environment) for about a minute.
When designing the new Hyper-V grid in 2010, we realized this bandwidth was no longer going to cut it. Our working density is 12:1 with our usable density of 40:1. That meant 2.4 Gbps to 8 Gbps per node. Our 2010 model is “fewer pieces, higher reliability” and that translates into redundant network links. This was more important when a good portion of our servers (10-15%) would be impacted by a link failure.
Let’s do a quick back of the napkin sketch. Traditional 1 Gbps Ethernet would require 10 primary and 10 secondary Ethernet connections. That’s ten dual 1 Gbps adapters: 10 x $250 = $2,500. That’s twenty 1 Gbps ports: 20 x $105 = $2,100. Then there’s the time and materials cost for cabling all that up. Let’s call that $500. By contrast, one dual port 10 GbE adapter is $700. We need two 10 GbE ports: 2 x $930 = $1,860. We need two cables ($120/per) plus installation. Let’s call that $400.
The total cost per Hyper-V host for 10 GbE is $2,960. Compared to the cost of 1 Gbps ($5,100), we are looking at a savings of $2,140. For higher density Hyper-V grids, 10 GbE is easily cost justified.
It took some engineering and re-organizing. We have been able to squeeze quite a bit of functionality and performance from the new technology. Cost savings plus enhancements? Win.
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