Cisco added to its UCS vision for data center operations with a virtualized network solution for connecting data centers based on its Nexus 7000 switches.

The firm said its OTV technology removes the complexity of data center interconnection which it says is currently complex to deploy, transport dependent and offering limited resiliency.

Terremark Worldwide tested OTV and likes what it saw. The firm operates 12 data centers and used Nexus 7000 Switches to consolidate our fabric with higher 10 Gigabit Ethernet port density it said. "After extensive testing, Cisco OTV appears to be a groundbreaking technology for data center interconnect, and could be a very significant contribution to the industry," said Michael Duckett, Terremark's General Manager of Network Services. "With OTV, we are able to more easily manage virtualization and cluster domains beyond a single data center, enable workload mobility between data centers, optimize compute resources across data centers, and help ensure business continuity by distributing applications and resources. These features have already proven to be beneficial for the multi-site deployments of our Enterprise Cloud and the delivery of our cloud-based disaster recovery services."

The company said it now plans to deploy Cisco OTV to interconnect multiple data centers into a cohesive data center architecture that is easier to manage and fulfill service requirements.

In a statement the supplier said: 'OTV significantly simplifies Data Center Interconnect deployment by extending Ethernet LANs across geographically distributed data centers over any existing network. OTV allows IT organizations to distribute applications and compute resources geographically, enabling multiple dispersed data centers to look like one logical data center. OTV is also an ideal solution for IT organizations that are consolidating data centers, are spanning clusters across data centers, or have legacy applications requiring L2 connectivity.'

Cisco partner VMware endorsed the product. "Moving workloads between data centers has typically involved complex and time-consuming network design and configurations," said Ben Matheson, senior director, global partner marketing, VMware. "VMware VMotionÔäócan now leverage Cisco OTV to easily and cost-effectively move data center workloads across long distances, providing customers with resource flexibility and workload portability that span across geographically dispersed data centers. This represents a significant advancement for virtualized environments by simplifying and accelerating long-distance workload migrations."

The product will be available in April.

In a fact sheet to accompany the announcement Cisco listed the benefits of OTV:

ÔÇó Operational Simplicity- Since OTV is an overlay technology, it does not require a network redesign to deploy. With just four commands per site required, OTV can be enabled in a matter of minutes over existing networks, compared to current DCI solutions that take months of design and planning and entail network disruption. Adding a new data center to the OTV domain is simple, configuration is only required at the new location, OTV automatically synchronizes with all other sites.

ÔÇó Transport-independent - OTV is a MAC routing scheme. Ethernet frames are encapsulated in IP packets and transported over any network that supports IP, therefore, OTV can be deployed over any network such as: Internet, private IP network or MPLS.

ÔÇó Increased Resiliency - Critical resiliency features are built into OTV and are automatically enabled when OTV is configured. These include multi-pathing, multi-homing and loop prevention. OTV also automatically suppresses flooding of unknown Layer 2 traffic, and since OTV is not dependant on spanning-tree, spanning tree packets are also suppressed. These features ensure that failures (such as broadcast storms or spanning-tree loops) in one data center are contained and do not propagate to other data centers.