Meeting the needs of increasingly demanding data centre applications may require more flexibility than users can gain by following the set recipe of a major networking vendor.

In fact, the largest data centres in the world are built from open solutions, using open protocols and open usage models (like the ones defined by consortiums like Open Data Centre (ODC) Alliance) and combined in ways that recipe-based configurations can`t support.

This points to a need for best-of-breed solutions in the data centre, but many data centre operators are afraid to stray from the prescribed path defined by the largest network vendors, says Bala Pitchaikani Vice-President of Product Line Management at Dell Force10 Networks, San Jose, California.