International audienceThis chapter focuses on network configuration and flow scheduling for Big Data applications. It highlights how the performance of Big Data applications is tightly coupled with the performance of the network in supporting large data transfers. Deploying high-performance networks in data centers is thus vital but configuration and performance management as well as the usage of the network are of paramount importance. This chapter starts by discussing the problem of virtual machine placement and its solutions considering the underlying network topology. It then provides an analysis of alternative topologies highlighting their advantages from the perspective of Big Data applications needs. In this context, different routing and flow scheduling algorithms are discussed in terms of their potential for using the network most efficiently. In particular, Software-Defined Networking relying on centralized control and the ability to leverage global knowledge about the network state is propounded as a promising approach for efficient support of Big Data applications
