The major shift to a work-from-home scenario during the COVID-19 pandemic has increased IT complexity and created new sources of data, driving the need for enterprises to modernize their data center networks.

One of the main trends is the jump in network speed from 100 Gig to 400 Gig to allow faster transfer of an increasing amount of data, according to James Wynia (pictured), director of product management, networking, at Dell Technologies Inc.

“So many people have moved home and so, as a result, the infrastructure back on the farm, back in the data center, has to be beefier,” he said. “You have to have more capacity; you have to be able to handle more scaling operations. And so, things like the ability to radically increase your backbone just by swapping in some different transceivers, possibly some different switches to support those faster transceivers, allow for us to multiply that bandwidth very quickly.”

Wynia spoke with Lisa Martin, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, for a digital CUBE Conversation. They discussed modern network requirements, industries that are already moving to faster infrastructure, the importance of automation in data migration, and the need for security. (* Disclosure below.)

Automation plays a central role

Enterprises interested in a faster network should prepare for this. These businesses need to ensure they have a backbone infrastructure that can support 400 Gig and the right hardware to go with that, according to Wynia.

“Ironically enough, the actual optical cable trunks, those are pretty much the same,” he said. “And so, if you were running single-mode fiber to go a long distance, you would use that same cable so you don’t have to rip out all your cable infrastructure.”

While some companies are moving up to this speed by building a whole additional data center, others are just extending what they already have by aggregating 400 Gig links. Whichever path an enterprise chooses, the benefits can be enormous.

“Certainly, the capacity is the biggest one that jumps out at us here, as we can just combine, add on more services. Another area where we see this impact, and which, again, boils down to capacity, is IoT and edge,” Wynia explained.

For this modern network to produce the best results, automation needs to play a central role. As this infrastructure tends to have more switchers, it is critical that companies have tools to configure, maintain and monitor them automatically, according to Wynia. Automation is also important for managing this infrastructure, whether on-premises or in the cloud.

“As we have gone from those modular chassis to more individual units to get this cleaner deployment, the Day 1 has to do with ‘How do you design that?’ … and so, tools such as in Dell, we have tools like the Fabric Design Center that automatically generate all of those wiring diagrams for you, all of the testing,” Wynia stated.

Day 2 operations can be automated with tools like SmartFabric Director. “Those kinds of tools really are the lifeblood to make sure that the team doesn’t just get overwhelmed. You need more equipment that’s more complex, but you have less number of eyes on what’s going on,” he concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s CUBE Conversations. (* Disclosure: This segment was sponsored by Dell Technologies Inc. Neither Dell Technologies nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE