What is data center networking?

Reliable and high-performing data center networking enables organizations to provision new services faster, leverage automation and orchestration to reduce the cost of ownership, empower development teams, and better secure assets through enterprise segmentation. Modern data center networks must be automated to provide business with the agile services they need.

Comparing Two-Tier and Three-Tier Data Center Networks

Modern applications require a modern data center infrastructure, and two-tier, spine-leaf architectures offer many advantages over traditional three-tier designs.
Article
•Feb 17, 2022

How to Determine If ACI Multi-Site is the Right Data Center Solution

Is ACI and ACI Multi-Site the correct solution for your data center refresh? By leveraging the ACI Multi-Site on-demand labs, you can determine if the ACI Multi-Site spine/leaf fabric architecture fits your business and technical requirements for brownfield or greenfield data center refreshes.
Article
•Aug 6, 2023

WWT Delivers First of Its Kind ACI Multi-Site, Multi-Pod Integration During Data Center Migration

WWT's subject matter expertise and willingness to go the extra mile helped a massive service provider consolidate more than 50 data center facilities into three while upskilling its IT team to work with the technology.
Case Study

Optical Data Center Interconnect: Connecting Your Data Centers With Private DWDM Technology

Optical Data Center Interconnect (DCI) provides a cost saving, high density, flexible alternative to leased circuits for connecting geographically separated data centers.
Article
•Aug 28, 2023

Global Network Transformation for Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) Enterprise

See the impact that the WWT team made in transforming the network and end user experience at one of the world's leading manufacturing companies.
Case Study

How do I get started?

Data center networks have evolved to consist of both logical and physical networks. Simplifying data center operations through automation introduces new concepts as well as challenges to maintaining security and reliability. WWT can help you assess your current environment, then design, build, install and operate the optimal data center networking solution to meet your short and long-term business goals. 

Evaluate

Evaluate and learn about the different technologies that make up today's modern data centers, software-defined networking (SDN) solutions, and automation tools and platforms.

NEXUS Dashboard, NEXUS Insights and AppDynamics Lab

Over the years, Cisco has developed various ACI tools (now for DCNM and NX-OS and eventually public cloud visibility) known as the day 2 operations suite. The tools are Network Assurance Engine (NAE) and NEXUS Insights (NI is now the combination of Network Insights Resources (NIR) and Network insights Advisor (NIA)). Cisco has embarked on combining NAE and NI into a single pane of glass view and providing sharable data lakes for all apps, allowing for correlating application performance and fabric events.
Advanced Configuration Lab
•395 launches

VMware NSX-T Virtual Lab

This is an On-Demand Lab for VMware NSX-T. It provides the same lab experience as the one day NSX-T training class but without the slide content and on-site architect. This lab is not meant to teach operations, best practices or replace VMware's hands-on classes.
Foundations Lab
•1668 launches

Multi-Site DCNM Lab

This lab will enable a student to build a basic Multi-Site fabric using Data Center Network Manager (DCNM) for complete end-to-end connectivity.
Advanced Configuration Lab
•295 launches

Design

Proper underlay (physical network) and overlay (logical network) design is crucial to achieving the desired simplicity of modern data center networks. You can only achieve data security and constant policy by taking a holistic approach that removes traditional data center workgroup silos. WWT can help you plan and design an automated, secure and streamlined data center.

Thinking About ACI or DCNM for Your Next Data Center Upgrade?

Thinking about ACI or DCNM for your next data center upgrade? This article will help you learn more about the advantages of each fabric.
Article
•Sep 22, 2021

What Is Software-Defined Networking (SDN)?

At its core, software-defined networking (SDN) separates the management, which is the control plane of network devices, from the data plane, which relays network traffic.
Article
•Aug 25, 2021

SmartNICs, Distributed Service Processing Cards and Functional Accelerator Cards: The Future of Networking

Learn what a SmartNIC is, and why today is the perfect time to start implementing them.
Article
•Jun 15, 2021

Implement

Because data centers house the crown jewels of any business, they must be properly planned and implemented to mitigate risk. We have the experience and expertise to help you every step of the way.

Data Center Networking Design Workshop

A Data Center Networking Design Workshop creates a holistic view of your data center infrastructure that can deliver the right support for security, connectivity and operational impact.
Workshop
•8 hrs

Cisco ACI Design Workshop

The market for data center networking has shifted towards software-defined solutions. Cisco ACI offers a unique approach to addressing the challenges of the data center network, providing visibility, speed, agility, and cloud extensions. The workshop will explore the Cisco Intent-Based Network and focus on closed-loop assurance. Automation is also increasing, reducing manual effort in operating and maintaining complex technologies. The goal is to help customers achieve a secure, reliable, and stable data center network with consistent and measurable results.
Workshop
•4 hrs

VMware NSX-T Design Workshop

WWT's goal of the NSX-T Design Workshop is to help provide a solid design foundation for NSX-T.
Workshop
•4 hrs

NSX on ACI Workshop

WWT's goal of the NSX on ACI Workshop is to help provide guidance around integrating VMware NSX with Cisco's ACI.
Workshop
•8 hrs

Open Networking Briefing

Opensource/Whitebox Networking is both a technology and methodology. Through this briefing, you will develop an understanding of the technical, logistical and economic considerations involved in the evaluation, customization, at-scale deployment and ongoing support for ON solutions.
Briefing
•1 hr

Operate

The work doesn't stop once a data center is up and running. There are still Day 2 operational tasks, monitoring tools and additional features to implement. WWT can help you make the most of your hardware and software investment. Post-deployment is also a great time to continue learning about new automation tools and skills.

Using Ansible Tower to Implement Security Policies and Telemetry Streaming for Hybrid Clouds

Network analytics provides insight to the traffic flow between applications and endpoints. Telemetry data is streamed in real-time from software sensors and network devices to big-data clusters. Implementing the policy to create a whitelist-based segmentation and zero-trust model requires automation when dealing with tens of thousands of workloads and complex rules.
Video
•51:29
•Nov 1, 2019

It's an Exciting Time to Be in Networking...

The role of network engineers is evolving to one that requires skills creating, manipulating and generating data used to automate network configuration.
Article
•Nov 18, 2019

An Automation Journey: From ACI to IAC With Terraform

Terraform is a tool for building, changing and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently. It can handle the repetitive configuration task programmatically without the need to use the ACI management GUI or command-line interface.
Article
•Dec 3, 2019

WWT Saves Time and Money Using Ansible Automation

By adopting Ansible automation, WWT IT is no longer asking themselves if they should automate; they're asking what should they automate next?
Case Study

Open Networking: What to Expect in 2021

SONiC is working its way to the top of the Open Network foodchain, and now the big vendors are lining up to support it.
Article
•Jan 28, 2021

Case studies

WWT Helps a Large Midwestern Manufacturer Escape Wireless Vendor Lock-In

When a large midwestern manufacturer encountered significant challenges with their existing wireless OEM, WWT stabilized the company's wireless network and helped them select, test and deploy a second OEM solution for vastly improved performance as well as simplified deployment, use and management.
Case Study

Global Pharmaceutical Company Saves Six Months and 14% on Network Infrastructure Build

Learn how WWT's seamless teamwork and collaboration reduced costs and allowed the business to hit critical timelines while supporting their digital transformation.
Case Study

Bank Accelerates Technology Innovation with Lab Hosting Services

WWT's Lab Hosting offering is playing a key role in how a bank certifies technology, evaluates solutions from multiple vendors and acquires new skills.
Case Study

Energy Providers Saves Millions with Data Center Modernization

Learn how a large utilities provider partnered with WWT on their IT transformation toward Multi Cloud & deployed Dell VxRail with VMware Tanzu as a solution to achieve the objective
Case Study

Get started today

Don't see what you're looking for or want to learn more? Reach out to us to get started.

Contact us

Related reading

Partner POV | Why is data center networking so broken?

Data center networks are plagued by human error, poor visibility and complexity. Outages aren't just frustrating; they're symptoms of a deeper issue. The way we manage networks is fundamentally broken.
Partner Contribution
•Jul 10, 2025

Partner POV | Nokia named as a Visionary in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Center Switching

The industry analyst firm Gartner® published the 2025 Magic Quadrant™ for Data Center Switching, its assessment of the data center networking industry. Nokia is named as a Visionary in this first edition of the report.
Partner Contribution
•Jul 10, 2025

MP-BGP EVPN VXLAN for the beginner

The article below covers VXLAN encapsulation and how MP-BGP is used to learn and forward layer two and layer three traffic across the encapsulation. To better understand the content, we recommended that readers have prior knowledge of BGP and the MP-BGP routing protocol. For those unfamiliar with these concepts, we suggest reading our foundational learning path's "MP-BGP for the beginner" article beforehand. It's important to note that MP-BGP EVPN VXLAN may initially seem intimidating, but this beginner's guide will clearly understand how it works. It's a technology that has gained popularity over the last few years, with many companies adopting it.
Article
•Apr 23, 2025

Use the NEXUS Dashboard Free Trial to Proactively Monitor Your ACI Fabric (Part 2)

The second part in this white paper series illustrates the use cases for NEXUS Insight Application to proactively monitor and maintain your ACI fabric.
White Paper
•Apr 9, 2025

The Future of Intent-based Networking and Multi-domain Architectures: Part I

This series of articles will explore what intent-based networking (IBN) is and how organizations can leverage it to build multi-domain architectures. As more organizations embrace these architectures, WWT is seeing a change in networking the likes which haven't been seen in many years.
Article
•Apr 9, 2025

The Future of Intent-based Networking and Multi-domain Architectures: Part II

The second in our series, this article explores what intent-based networking (IBN) is and how organizations can leverage it to build multi-domain architectures.
Article
•Apr 9, 2025

The Future of Intent-based Networking and Multi-domain Architectures: Part III

The last in a series of articles exploring intent-based networking, this article focuses on the art of the possible as it pertains to linking all the disparate SDN domains.
Article
•Apr 9, 2025

Use the NEXUS Dashboard Free Trial to Proactively Monitor Your ACI Fabric

Learn how to create a 90-day POC to verify fabric performance, troubleshoot issues and validate the usefulness of the NEXUS Dashboard and day 2 operations suite.
White Paper
•Apr 9, 2025