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What does east-west traffic refer to?

  1. Data transfer between devices in different data centers

  2. Traffic between devices in the same data center

  3. Traffic directed to external networks

  4. Data processing within a single device

The correct answer is: Traffic between devices in the same data center

East-west traffic specifically refers to the flow of data between devices that are located within the same data center, highlighting the interactions that occur internally among servers, storage systems, and other resources. This type of traffic is crucial for operations like application communication and database updates, as it tends to be more efficient and faster than sending data outside the data center to access resources. By characterizing this traffic as "east-west," it differentiates it from "north-south" traffic, which usually denotes data moving in and out of a data center to external locations. This understanding is essential in network design, as optimizing east-west traffic can lead to better performance and resource utilization within data centers.