Within the context of intelligent switches, split path architecture for intelligent devices (SPAID) is an architectural alternative to in-band (IB) and out-of-band (OOB) models. With an IB architecture, data path and control path functionality is processed at the same point in the fabric. This is a simple approach, but it has scalability implications. With OOB, control path processing is separated out for better scalability, but necessitates a host-side agent, which many IT shops are resistant to. SPAID combines IB and OOB and inherits the best of both worlds: IB's simplicity and OOB's scalability. It does this by placing the host-side agent on the intelligent switch, specifically on specialized hardware used for performing data path processing.
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This was first published in March 2005