BLADE Network Technologies is unveiling a “top-of-rack” data center-class switch featuring network virtualization capabilities and priced at under $500 per 10 Gigabit Ethernet port.
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BLADE’s RackSwitch G8100, a 1U top-of-rack switch equipped with 24 lossless, low-latency 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GE) ports, is designed for emerging high-volume 10 GE application environments, high-performance clusters that require latency of 300 nanoseconds or less and/or as a 10 GE aggregation switch. BLADE’s RackSwitch G8000, a 1U top-of-rack switch equipped with 48 Gigabit Ethernet ports and four 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports for uplinks and/or stacking, is designed for rack-level server connectivity, Web 2.0 cloud clusters and/or as a Gigabit aggregation switch.
BLADE said its RackSwitch provides energy-efficient operations with server-rack compatible front-to-back airflow, lower power consumption than conventional switches and streamlined cabling. BLADE will also demonstrate how RackSwitch and BLADE’s embedded blade server switches support the “loss-less” I/O required to carry Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) storage traffic across Ethernet networks based on the emerging standards for Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE).
In addition, BLADE’s SmartConnect software enables multiple RackSwitches and/or BLADE’s existing embedded blade server switches to operate as one large virtual switch. BLADE’s Server Mobility capability allows server blades to be added, removed or replaced without the need of any address re-assignment — reducing the coordination normally required between server and network administrators.
The RackSwitch G8000 is priced starting at $5,495. RackSwitch G8100 is priced starting at $11,950 ¬– under $500 per 10 Gigabit Ethernet port.http://www.bladenetwork.net
