Network

Enterprises have the choice between private networks that are highly secure, single-tenant networks, and multi-tenant carrier networks offered by telcos. With 5G technology, we have seen a rise in private wireless networks. In choosing the type of network, solution architects must take into account the use case requirements, location, and cost. To add to the complexity, there are two types of networks – overlay and underlay.

The overlay network is a virtual network that operates on top of a physical infrastructure, the underlay. This abstraction model has opened new avenues of efficient network traffic routing. These new avenues affect both north-south and east-west traffic flows.

Reminder

North-south network traffic is the data flow to and from the cloud or data center. East-west network traffic is the data flow between deployed applications, amongst the components of applications, and to other cloud services.

Figure 2.5 shows, at a very high level, network...