By restricting communication between specific applications, microsegmentation limits the attack surface and contains breaches even if an adversary gains access to the internal fabric. Traditionally, network design prioritized north south traffic, which moves in and out of the data center to and from external users on the internet.
Node Communication Throughput Needs in East West Traffic Dynamics
This requirement has driven the adoption of leaf spine architectures, which replace traditional three-tier models to provide predictable, non-blocking connectivity. In contrast, east west traffic never leaves the internal fabric; it moves horizontally between virtual machines, bare metal servers, storage arrays, and other services.
Latency and Application Behavior Application performance is directly tied to the behavior of east west traffic. The Role of Visibility and Monitoring Effective management of east west traffic requires deep visibility into internal flows.
Node Communication Throughput Needs in East West Traffic
This reality has popularized microsegmentation, a technique that applies security policies at the workload level rather than the network segment level. As applications scale and communicate more frequently with their peers, this internal chatter often constitutes the majority of total bandwidth usage, challenging legacy designs built primarily for perimeter security.
More About East west vs north south network traffic
Looking at East west vs north south network traffic from another angle can help expand the discussion and give readers a second clear paragraph under the same section.
More perspective on East west vs north south network traffic can make the topic easier to follow by connecting earlier points with a few simple takeaways.
