Top Of Rack Switch Definition

Tor top of rack design.

Top of rack switch definition.

In the top of rack design servers connect to one ethernet switch or two for example gigabit ethernet switch or 10gbe switch installed inside the rack. In the top of rack design servers connect to one ethernet switch or two for example gigabit ethernet switch or 10gbe switch installed inside the rack. But actually top of rack switch is one kind of various switches located or installed inside a rack. Top of rack switching is a network architecture design in which computing equipment like servers appliances and other switches located within the same or adjacent rack are connected to an in rack network switch.

There is no precise saying about top of rack switch definition on wiki and other sites. A top of the rack or tor switch is a small port count switch that sits on the very top or near the top of a telco rack you see in data centers or co location facilities. In a data center there are several racks of servers storage equipment. The nexus 2000 series are fabric extenders fex.

See products benefits use cases and more. Other switch locations could be bottom of the rack or middle of rack however top of the rack is most common due to easier accessibility and cleaner cable management. Cisco data center switches are built for scale industry leading automation programmability and real time visibility. Generally top of rack switches are installed in stacked pairs enabling any one switch to be swapped out or rebooted with each server in the rack redundantly connected to both switches.

The 2000 series is not a stand alone switch but needs to be connected to a parent and should be seen as a module or remote line card but then installed in a 19. There is no precise saying about top of rack switch definition on wiki and other sites. The term top of rack has been coined for this design however the actual physical location of the switch does not necessarily need to be at the top of the rack. Cisco and brocade as.

The tor top of rack approach recommends network switches to be placed on every rack and all the computing devices present in the rack to be connected to them. But actually top of rack switch is one kind of various switches located or installed inside a rack. In highly virtualized data centers top of rack switches may even be 10gbps across all ports an expensive high performance option. The in rack network switch in turn is connected to aggregation switches via fiber optic cables.