networking Archives

Technician inspecting an edge-computing cabinet beside a warehouse conveyor.

Network Security Basics for Data Centers: Firewalls, Segmentation and Zero Trust

Data center networks are protected by layers of defense. This explainer covers firewalls, segmentation, encryption, DDoS protection and the zero trust approach in plain English.

Optical transceiver modules and fiber connectors beside a network switch.

Networking3 months ago

Redundancy and Failover: How Data Center Networks Stay Up When Things Break

In large networks, something is always failing. Here is how redundancy, diverse paths and automatic failover keep data center networks running through broken parts.

Software engineer working beside a small server test bench.

Explainers3 months ago

A Plain-English Glossary of AI Networking and Storage Terms

From all-reduce to NVMe, AI infrastructure is full of jargon. This glossary defines the most common networking, storage and cloud terms in a sentence or two...

Explainers4 months ago

A Reader’s Checklist: Questions to Ask About Any Data Center Network Story

Coverage of AI networking is full of speeds, acronyms and big claims. This checklist helps curious readers ask the right questions and make sense of what...

Networking4 months ago

Fat Trees, Dragonflies and Tori: A Field Guide to Network Topologies

Spine-leaf is not the only way to wire a cluster. This guide introduces the main network shapes used in data centers and supercomputers and the tradeoffs...

Precision die-bonding equipment inside an advanced semiconductor packaging cleanroom.

Compute & Silicon5 months ago

Silicon Photonics and Optical Links: Moving AI Data With Light

As AI clusters grow, copper wires struggle to keep up. Here is how optical connections and silicon photonics work, and why they are getting so much...

Liquid-Cooling Leak Detection and Reliability

Explainers6 months ago

Scale-Up vs Scale-Out: Two Ways to Build a Bigger AI Computer

AI clusters grow in two directions: by making tightly linked groups of chips larger, and by connecting more of those groups together. Here is the difference.