Blade Network Technologies Builds Industry's First 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switch For IBM BladeCenter
Blade Network Technologies Inc. (BLADE), the leading provider of network infrastructure to the blade server market, today announced the release of the blade server industry's first 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch module for the IBM BladeCenter.
The new switch, Nortel Layer 2/3 10 Gigabit Uplink Ethernet Switch Module (GbESM), is designed to work in IBM BladeCenter, BladeCenter H, or BladeCenter T. The switch can eliminate up to 85 percent of cabling compared to rack solutions, simplify data center deployment time and cost, and reduce the potential for outages caused by cable failures.
"IDC believes that the blade chassis will have a first-mover advantage in the 10 Gigabit Ethernet market, positioning the blade chassis as the logical platform for deploying applications that require 10 Gigabit Ethernet," said Lucinda Borovick, Program Director, Datacenter Networks, IDC. "With 10 Gigabit Ethernet, CIOs can take advantage of the cost and technical benefits of the popular Ethernet standard to meet their current datacenter requirements, while future-proofing their network with higher-speed capability."
The GbESM switch offers the bandwidth and performance required to support data running time-sensitive, high-bandwidth applications such as Voice over IP and Video on Demand. It features three 10 Gbps uplink ports, one 100/1000Mbps uplink and 14 internal 10/100/1000Mbps ports, for an aggregate throughput of 90 Gbps full duplex. The Nortel GbESM hardware is also fully compliant with the European Union's Restriction on Hazardous Materials (RoHS) directive.
"Bringing 10Gbps connectivity to the IBM BladeCenter increases efficiency and lowers the cost-of-ownership to the data center," said Vikram Mehta, President and CEO of Blade Network Technologies. "We are pleased to be the first vendor to bring 10Gbps switching to the IBM BladeCenter and to the blade server industry as a whole."
"IBM's collaboration with Blade Network Technologies has resulted in the blade server industry's first 10Gb switch," said Doug Balog, vice president and business line executive for IBM BladeCenter. "IBM's customers demand the highest performance, and we are pleased to meet their needs with the Nortel 10 Gigabit Uplink Ethernet Switch Module."
The GbESM switch serves as the communications gateway between the IBM BladeCenter and the rest of the network. The switch can be deployed in pairs into four available slots within the BladeCenter enclosure, offering a high degree of redundancy and failover. High availability is assured in software with Layer 2 Network Adapter Teaming, and Layer 3 Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP). Security is maintained with easy to configure filters that allow or deny traffic based on MAC address, IP address or virtual local area network (VLAN) ID. A dedicated VLAN for traffic between the Management Module and the switch improves the overall performance by segregating the management traffic from data traffic.
GbESM firmware provides a full set of Layer 2 features such as trunking, VLANs and Spanning Tree Protocol. It also supports advanced Layer 3 dynamic and static IP routing protocols such as IGMP, RIP, BGP, and OSPF. In addition, Quality of Service (QoS) is offered, which sets traffic queue prioritization for mission-critical applications such as Voice over IP (VOIP) and Video on Demand. The GbESM switch comes preconfigured with a default configuration, which saves deployment and administration time. Additional configurations can be performed using two CLI options-the Alteon OS CLI, or a Cisco-comparable CLI-and the Web-based management interface.
The Nortel 10Gb switch is available from IBM in June priced starting at $4,999.
About Blade Network Technologies
Blade Network Technologies (BLADE) is an industry leading supplier of Ethernet, IP, and application switches for blade server systems globally. BLADE is the first vendor to focus exclusively on serving the network infrastructure needs of the rapidly growing blade server market. The company's end-users include Fortune 500 companies across 25 different industry segments. As one of the largest suppliers of blade server switches, BLADE boasts an installed base of more than 59,000 switches (representing approximately 1.3 million Gigabit Ethernet ports) around the world. In 2006, BLADE was established as a fully independent company when it purchased certain assets of Nortel's Blade Server Switch Business Unit.
For more information, visit BLADE on the Web at www.bladenetwork.net.