OEM reference supplier Fulcrum Microsystems has unveiled a 10Gbps Ethernet data center switch design that vendors can use to make "lossless" alternatives to Fibre Channel fabrics.
Enterasys and Siemens Enterprise Communications are combining as a result of a $550 million joint venture between Gores Group, owner of Enterasys, and Siemens. The integration, which Enterasys says took 45 days, is another indicator of demand for unified wireline/WLAN products that can be configured, administered, operated and maintained from a single interface.
Fulcrum's 1RU Monaco platform is a 24-port SFP+ 10Gbps Ethernet switch that features congestion management and flow control. It includes a new Fulcrum congestion management technology, called VantagePoint, which when combined with the switch's 300ns Layer 3 latency, provides a network-wide view of congestion, contention and traffic loads.
Monaco then uses the IEEE's emerging 802.1Qau congestion notification and Fulcrum's IEEE 802.3x class-based pause congestion management capabilities to dynamically react to this global information.
The result is a lossless iteration of Ethernet for data center switching fabrics that can rival Fibre Channel and Infiniband, Fulcrum claims. VantagePoint can also be optimized by Fulcrum customers to provide differentiated or application-specific functionality, the company says.
The Monaco platform will make its debut at SC08 this week in Austin. Fulcrum will be showing a variety of technologies at the show including converged Ethernet fabrics and Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), including a demonstration with test equipment maker Ixia to show a unified 10 Gigabit Ethernet data center fabric serving both storage-area networking and LAN traffic.
The demonstration is intended to show the use of lossless Ethernet to transport SAN traffic using the FCoE protocol with guaranteed throughput, while at the same time forwarding standard Ethernet LAN traffic with potential loss. IEEE 802.1Qbb priority flow control will be used to prevent FCoE packets from being dropped on oversubscribed 10G Ethernet ports.
The Monaco platform is available now and is priced at $20,000.
Rss FeedRss Feed
The Leader in Network Knowledge
Partner Content
www.bmc.com
Gartner 2009 Magic Quadrant for Job Scheduling
Gartner has positioned BMC CONTROL-M in the Leaders Quadrant of their "2009 Magic Quadrant for Job Scheduling." The report assesses the ability to execute and completeness of vision of key vendors in the marketplace. Read a full copy today, courtesy of BMC Software.
Download whitepaper
Dell's SMART Approach to Workload Automation
Read a compelling case study by EMA, Inc. to learn how Dell uses BMC CONTROL-M to cut cost and increase productivity with workload automation.
Download whitepaper
Workload Automation Cost Savings 2 Minute Video
A major computer manufacturer uses BMC CONTROL-M and just four people to schedule and run over 85,000 jobs every month. By switching to BMC CONTROL-M, they more than quadrupled the workload without adding a single staff member. See how in this 2-minute video overview.
Go to video
Comment