In addition to bringing you analysis and news updates here at SiliconAngle and at Wikibon, I write white papers and other collateral for a number of industry players.  Most recently, I wrote a white paper for Dell Software.  This new white paper explores the critical networking concepts every virtualization administrator should understand to ensure their virtual environment operates at peak efficiency and lowest cost.  The paper, Top Seven Networking Concepts Every Virtualization Administrator Should Understand, explores the differences between networking in a virtual environment and in the physical world.

There is generally a lot of attention paid to other resource areas in a virtual environment – storage, compute, and RAM.  However, for many, the underlying connecting fabric – the network – if taken for granted.  In a well-designed virtual environment, there are many factors that must be considered when it comes to networking. In order to achieve best results, there are a number of basic questions that every virtualization administrator should be able to answer when designing the networking environment for the infrastructure:

• What makes networking in a virtual environment different from networking in the physical world?
• How many physical NICs are enough?
• What different virtual network adapters are available and which should be used?
• What basic networking concepts do VM admins need to understand and why?
• What role do VLANs play in a virtual environment?
• How are VLANs extended into the virtual environment?
• What are some of the differences between the standard virtual switch and the vSphere Distributed Switch?

The answers to these questions define a baseline set of knowledge, when enables administrators to make better decisions in their jobs and to be able to more easily troubleshoot networking issues if – and when – they happen to arise.  Because the network remains the foundation of the IT infrastructure upon which IT does business, virtual admins need to understand its nature and behavior, well beyond simply knowing the virtualization technologies.

For more information about the paper or to download a copy of the full white paper, please visit here.  Further, if you have any questions or feedback about the paper, I would be delighted if you would leave a comment here at SiliconAngle.com.