Umair Hoodbhoy

Author Archives: Umair Hoodbhoy

The Etymology of Elephant and Mice Flows

Over the past 3-4 years, the term elephant flows has been used to refer to east-west (machine-to-machine) traffic, such as vMotion, Migration, Backup, and Replication. The term mice flows is used to refer to north-south (user-to-machine) traffic. Why are we using these terms all of a sudden and did they come from? Wikipedia states “It is not clear who … Continue reading The Etymology of Elephant and Mice Flows

White Box switch readiness for prime time

Matthew Stone runs Cumulus Networks switches in his production network. He came on the Software Gone Wild podcast recently to talk about his experiences. Cumulus, Pica8, and Big Switch are the three biggest proponents of white box switching. While Pica8 focuses on the Linux abstractions for L2/L3, Pica8 focuses more on the OpenFlow implementation, and Big … Continue reading White Box switch readiness for prime time