CTO Straight Talk - Issue 3 - 59

CTO STRAIGHT TALK | ISSUE 3

To get maximum agility all network
function smust be written in software
on general-purpose computers;
conversely, to get maximum
performance, one must sacrifice agility
and specialize the infrastructure to
do one network function well. Either
extreme has problems.
A better approach is to recognize the
trade-off and to use the right engine
for each type of network function.
Networks are generally understood
to have four types of functions:
management, control, layer 4-7 services,
and packet forwarding. The first two
functions are best executed on generalpurpose processors because there
is little in the computations being
performed that would benefit from
specialized hardware. Forwarding, on
the other hand, benefits hugely in
performance and price-performance
by having specialized programmable
hardware. Finally, L4-L7 services
can also benefit from specialization,
although the benefits are less dramatic
than for forwarding.

rather than looking at the two attributes
in isolation.

What are the implications, in terms
of how IT infrastructure is
developed and deployed, of the
recent slowdown in performance
improvements?
We have gotten used to seeing
exponential improvements in the
performance of compute storage
and networking. But in the last
decade, compute performance has
slowed down significantly compared
to the golden age between 1945 and
2005, where a doubling every 18 to 24
months was the norm. The implications
of this slowdown are profound, and will
impact all aspects of IT. Significantly,
performance improvements in storage
have accelerated because of new solid
state technologies, and performance
improvements in networking continue
almost unabated.

For any given technology, there is
generally an inverse relationship
between performance and agility-if
you want higher performance, you
will need to give up some agility and
vice versa.

Scale-out architectures were invented
specifically to continue to improve
the overall throughput of computation
delivered to users, despite the
technology limitation of individual
microprocessor chips. The trick was
to connect massive numbers of
microprocessors, coupled by a fast
local area network, and to write
applications in such a way that they
could be distributed across this
distributed general purpose computer.

Given this inverse relationship, it is
easy to conclude that a good way to
evaluate infrastructure is to look at the
product of agility and performance

These architectures are now over a
decade old-that makes them really
old in "Internet Years"-and we are
beginning to see the limitations of

What is the relationship between
performance and agility?

59



CTO Straight Talk - Issue 3

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of CTO Straight Talk - Issue 3

Contents
CTO Straight Talk - Issue 3 - Cover1
CTO Straight Talk - Issue 3 - Cover2
CTO Straight Talk - Issue 3 - 1
CTO Straight Talk - Issue 3 - Contents
CTO Straight Talk - Issue 3 - 3
CTO Straight Talk - Issue 3 - 4
CTO Straight Talk - Issue 3 - 5
CTO Straight Talk - Issue 3 - 6
CTO Straight Talk - Issue 3 - 7
CTO Straight Talk - Issue 3 - 8
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CTO Straight Talk - Issue 3 - 65
CTO Straight Talk - Issue 3 - Cover4
https://magazine.straighttalkonline.com/cto/issue4
https://magazine.straighttalkonline.com/cto/issue3
https://magazine.straighttalkonline.com/cto/issue2
https://magazine.straighttalkonline.com/cto/issue1
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