The Data Center Network (DCN) is essential for supporting high-performance workloads, including Artificial Intelligence (AI). This briefing will explore next-generation data center architectures, highlighting the advantages of using an underlay/overlay topology and controller-based management. As DCN architectures become more complex, day-two operations software becomes increasingly necessary. This session will provide an overview of DCN hardware, architectures, and day-two operations, along with a brief introduction to the most commonly seen DCN OEMs in enterprise data centers.

The primary storage landscape has changed drastically over the last three years. The mass adoption of flash storage, the movement of workloads to the cloud and the emergence of new fabric technologies with NVMe are all trends that are reshaping how we go about selecting primary storage in the data center.