Data Center Interconnection Hardware Costs Growing Fast

Data center interconnection requirements are large and getting larger. As Cisco notes, most movement of internet traffic is within the data center. Some 72 percent of all traffic is “east-west,” defined as data moving solely within a single data center.

Only about 30 percent of total traffic moves in or out of a single data center (north-south traffic). About 14 percent of traffic moves between data centers. Only about 15 percent of traffic moves between data centers and end users. 

All of that interconnection carries costs for data centers, and interconnection costs are growing. 

“At 10G, pluggable) optics represented about 10 percent of the total hardware cost of a data center network,” says Bill Gartner, Cisco SVP and general manager. “As we progress to 400G, optics represent well over 50 percent of the total hardware cost.”

source: Cisco