User:Geek2003/VENA

Virtual Enterprise Network Architecture (VENA) in computer networking is an integration of mesh networking topologies with network virtualization and cloud computing to create an open virtualization solution which helps set up private cloud infrastructures anywhere from corporate campuses to data centers. This solution dramatically eases the design, management, and impementation of networks; VENA greatly simplifies operations at data centers as they become more virtualized or extend further to branch offices and remote locations. It leverages shortest path bridging, Split multi-link trunking, VRF, as well as other multi-path and link aggregation protocols which can be implemented modularly or as a simple upgrade to existing products. This use of virtualization and the most optimum paths leads to reduced costs and significantly reduces the time to service by efficiently augmenting the network connections between servers and end users; with the use of this new technology, a desktop could be seamlessly connected to a data center as if it were end-to-end. The VENA solution has also been credited with reducing risk for IT managers as it provides many new streamlined tools for network management. VENA also allows for single touch provisioning, reduction in the complexity of policy configurations, and significant decreases in the need for network re-design.

General Information
With Avaya's Virtual Enterprise Network Architecture, the network core will only have to be built once with no reconfiguration; implementation, storage convergence, and data migration have also been greatly simplified, as well as business continuity and disaster plans. VENA consists of four parts: existing ethernet switching hardware, next generation ethernet switching hardware, Avaya's suite of unified network management tools, and the system's revolutionary switch fabric built on shortest path bridging; VENA connects servers at the edge of the switch fabric so that there is no need to configure the network at up-links or between cores. The switch fabric will be able to add or change services 25 times as fast as traditional tree networks. Services can be deployed wherever they are required, regardless of physical topology or geography. Existing ethernet switching hardware would consist of an Avaya ERS-8800 or ERS-8600, as they both have software upgrades which will easily enable the virtual switch fabric. The next generation ethernet routing switch can only be the Avaya Virtual Service Platform 9000, as it is the only core/data-center switch powerful enough to support VENA.