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.
Top of rack switch definition.
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.
The in rack network switch in turn is connected to aggregation switches via fiber optic cables.
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Each rack contains multiple computing devices.
Top of rack 1u high system that can be used in combination with higher end nexus switches like the 5000 6000 or 7000 series.
In a data center there are several racks of servers storage equipment.
Cisco data center switches are built for scale industry leading automation programmability and real time visibility.
In highly virtualized data centers top of rack switches may even be 10gbps across all ports an expensive high performance option.
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.
Despite its name top of rack tor switches can be placed anywhere in the rack.
Tor top of rack design.
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.
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.
But actually top of rack switch is one kind of various switches located or installed inside a 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.
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.
There is no precise saying about top of rack switch definition on wiki and other sites.
The nexus 2000 series are fabric extenders fex.
Cisco and brocade as.
There is no precise saying about top of rack switch definition on wiki and other sites.
