[1][page needed] As a result of virtualization, private cloud, converged, and hyper-converged infrastructure adoption, east-west traffic volumes have increased.
[2] As disaggregated compute and storage becomes popular, east-west traffic volumes will increase.
Traditionally, many data centers today deploy their systems using a fat-tree or CLOS topology.
In this network topology, servers and appliances that host applications are deployed within the racks.
[3] Applications communicate with other applications running on other systems for typical services, such as accessing an asset stored in another device, gathering results from a micro-service task(s) executed on other systems, or simply getting a status update from management software.