Hybrid 1/10Gbit/s Ethernet switches for IBM's BladeCenter | | 2008-06-30 | | Blade Network Technologies is to supply hybrid 1/10Gbit/s Ethernet switches for IBM’s BladeCenter.
Launched as part of Blade’s "Rackonomics" initiative, the new switch provides 50 percent greater bandwidth and up to 50% better energy efficiency. At $4,999, it is up to 50% less expensive than comparable Cisco blade switches.
The switch includes VMReady network virtualization capabilities and Extensions to IBM BladeCenter Open Fabric Manager, allowing extensive I/O virtualization capabilities.
Features include:
- the availability of six concurrent 1-Gigabit copper and three 10-Gigabit SFP+ fiber uplinks for 50 percent more bandwidth than alternative blade switch offerings
- layer 2/3 support for advanced features such as Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) and Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) built-in at no additional cost
- 104 Gbit/s full-duplex throughput to the IBM BladeCenter enclosure
- fibre Channel over Ethernet access to storage with loss-less and fast latency attributes.
Alex Yost, IBM Vice President and Business Line Executive for IBM BladeCenter said "IBM continues to foster an ecosystem of industry-leading products around BladeCenter, and now we’ll add Blade’s new 1/10 Gigabit Ethernet switch ... With its combination of 1 Gigabit and 10 Gigabit uplinks, (it) provides our customers with strong investment protection and a clear migration path as they transition to 10 Gigabit Ethernet."
Rackonomics refers to the concept of rack-level provisioning - designing, deploying and replicating server/computer systems, data networks and storage area networks (SANs) rack by rack to:
- decrease the total cost of ownership of data centre infrastructures
- reduce IT complexity
- enable incremental scalability.
One of the primary tenets of Rackonomics is that putting switches into blade enclosures and server/storage racks is far more economical than using external core switches.
| |
|
