"40GbE support as a downlink from ToR to End of Row (EoR) and in the core at density is here, ready and performs as advertised. In addition 40GbE cost is approximately 3 to 4 times that of 10GbE, making 40GbE favorable from a pricing point of view too. There are plenty of ToR switches that support multiple 40GbE options such as:
"In the core switch market, there is only one company with high-density 40GbE, and that's Extreme BlackDiamond X8 with 192-40GbE.
"But we expect at least four more high-density 40GbE core switches to be launched in 2012. Note, at times, we did observe some difficulty with preamble and equalization at the physical QSFP+ level causing packet loss, but this we mitigated through software control."
David Ginsburg - Chief Marketing Officer of Extreme Networks:
"Thank you Brad for the coverage and kind words. Extreme Networks sees the high density, low latency, energy efficiency, and network convergence provided by network platforms such as the 40 GbE BlackDiamond X8 switch as critical for the next evolution of cloud-scale and high-performance computing (HPC). In fact, even if Cisco was a 40 GbE no-show for the recent Lippis Report testing, Extreme Networks entirely agrees with its recent Cloud Index predictions. A rising cloud floats all boats, so to speak."
Ginsberg continued:
"The issues that our data center and hosted cloud customers are bringing to our attention are common within the industry, and focus on the TCO of the solution, including both the initial capital expense as well as ongoing operational expenses. Customers wish to wring costs out of the network, while increasing reliability and flexibility. When offering cloud-based services, their enterprise customers demand lower IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS pricing. A solution spans multiple, sometimes contentious topics:
A single hardware and software architecture.
"This data center architecture must support an evolution to what many are calling a fabric, a network that is flat, fully-meshed, optimized for east-west traffic flows, and offers a roadmap to 40 GbE and 100 GbE. And, though sometimes overlooked, a single end-to-end network OS in the data center introduces configuration, service, and maintenance efficiencies. It also provides a platform for increased intelligence and automation, moving the discussion beyond speeds and feeds.
Standards-based, vs. a vendor-specific proprietary approach.
"This is probably the most contentious area, generating many a blog pitting different Layer 2 and 3 approaches against one another. It also introduces Software Defined Networks (SDN), which may in some cases be enabled via OpenFlow depending upon the customer's business model or scalability requirements.
Investment protection, permitting an incremental upgrade from existing infrastructure.
"This contrasts to solutions that require investment in new ToR and EoR switches, or a totally new and unique management infrastructure.
An open ecosystem, permitting choice in storage, compute, virtualization, and orchestration.
"This is the basis of Extreme's Open Fabric architecture, an approach that was also highlighted by Gartner just this week at its Data Center conference held in Las Vegas. It brings the discussion full-circle back to minimizing TCO through vendor leverage."
In the below video, Extreme's director of product and technical marketing - Darius Goodall, speaks with Nick Lippis about the fastest switch ever, the Extreme BlackDiamond X8:
