VN-Tagging is the next evolution in virtual aware networking. VN-Tagging will allow a virtual machine to attach to a virtual switch port within a physical switch and allow engineers to configure and manage these ports just like an actual physical port. VN-Tagging is still an emerging technology, but has great promise in the near future.
Overlay Transport Virtualization, or OTV, is another emerging technology that will revolutionize the data center. With OTV engineers will not have the ability to provide traditional layer 2 functionality over the layer 3 transport. Being able to provide this technology through the Cisco Nexus line of switches now means people can provide homogenous connectivity between locations separated by routed IP links. This solves many of the challenges and dangers associated with using layer 2 transports across management boundaries. Disaster Recovery scenarios are one arena where the OTV will help to simplify and protect customers with recovery sites.
IEEE 802.1 Data Center Bridging is a collection of standards-based extensions to classical Ethernet. It provides a lossless data center transport layer that enables the convergence of LANs and SANs onto a single Unified Fabric. In addition to supporting Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), it enhances the operation of iSCSI, network-attached storage (NAS), and other business-critical traffic.