The 3 Layers of Data Center Management

In any given organization, the data center is the most critical resource. This center serves a very important function as it provides the means of management dissemination, application, and communication for the business. Proper planning for the data center is very important scalability, performance and resilience are very critical and must be taken into consideration. The data center should also be flexible so that it can support many and new applications. Azure management is based on a three-layered approach which has been tested and proven. They have also been improved over time. This three-layered approach is the forms the basic design for data center management. The three layers are the core, aggregation and access layers they are discussed below.

1. Core Layer

The core layer provides a packet switching backplane which is of high speed for all traffic flowing in and out of the data center. The core layer of the data center also provides resilient layer three routed fabric with no single failure point. The core layer also provides connection to multiple aggregation modules.it runs a load which balances flow between the campus core and the aggregation layer. The core layer operates interior routing protocol such as ISIS or OSPF. The data core layer is entirely a layer 3 environment, meaning that the core layer is free from PC and spanning tree.

2. The aggregation layer module

The aggregation layer serves several important functions such as; layer 2 domain definition, default gateway redundancy, module integration and spanning tree processing. Services such as server load balancing and firewall can be used as a server to server multi-tier flow of traffic to balance and secure applications.

3. The access layer

The access layer is the point where the server attaches physically to the network. The component of the server is; blade server with integral switches, clustered server, a mainframe with OSA adapters, a blade server with pass-through cabling and 1 RU servers. The main content of access layer layout is the modular switcher, fixed configuration 1 or 2 RU, and the integral blade server switches. Switches can fulfill various administration requirements and various servers broadcast domain by providing both the layer 2 and layer 3 topologies. Connectivity to the SAN must be better the storage path can utilize the fiber channel or Ethernet channel.

For the proper organization of the data center in any organization, they are structured into three layers; the access layer, the aggregation layer, and the core layer. This structure helps in the management of data and facilitates the better running of an organization.