Ethernet switch

BLADE Network Technologies, the data center switch vendor being acquired by IBM, this week unveiled a top-of-rack 10G switch with 40G Ethernet uplinks, making it one of the first vendors to ship the new standard high-speed technology.

Three switching vendors this week are unveiling new and enhanced data center products, including for those looking to upgrade to 40Gbps Ethernet in the near future.

Ethernet switching company Force10 Networks this week filed for a $144 million IPO.

In many data centers, latency and jitter are the most important metrics. Even the small amounts of delay (latency) or delay variation (jitter) introduced by a switch can have a profound impact on application performance.

Juniper Networks today announced the availability of the EX8216 Ethernet switch, a 16-slot platform with a switch fabric capacity of 12.4 terabits.

Announcements from four vendors highlight a growing trend in data center networking: the rapid uptake of 10 Gigabit Ethernet to accommodate increasing computational and storage density brought on by application growth, increasing use of blade servers and large-scale virtualization.