* HP’s stackable Gigabit Ethernet switches
HP last week unveiled stackable switches that provide Gigabit Ethernet links to desktops and servers on one side and 10 Gigabit Ethernet uplinks on the other.
Stackable switches have traditionally been used to bring low-cost, scalable connectivity to wiring closets. It could be argued that Gigabit rates on stackables are overkill, but there are certainly some applications where lots of Gigabit Ethernet ports might be desirable, and those applications are growing.
In its announcement HP offered up Oregon State University as an organization that would be interested in such a device. Oregon State studies coastal zones, ocean processes, and interactions among ocean, land, and atmosphere. For those studies it does all sorts of numerical modeling and simulations, and therefore uses video and graphics heavily, which require lots of bandwidth.
HP’s ProCurve 3400cl series of switches consists of just two at the moment – a 24-port switch and a 48-port switch. Twenty of the ports in the 24-port model are 10/100/1000M bit/sec copper-based ports. The four remaining ports are called “dual-personality” ports – they can be used for more 10/100/1000M bit/sec connections or they can be populated with mini-GBIC connectors for fiber-optic connections. The 48-port model has 44 ports of 10/100/1000M bit/sec Ethernet and four dual-personality ports.
Both switches also have a module slot for optional 10 Gigabit Ethernet uplinks. A copper-based module has two 10GBase-CX4 ports. This is the 10 Gigabit Ethernet that runs for very short distances (15 meters) over an InfiniBand cable. The module can be used to stack the 3400cl switches or to uplink to a core network switch.
The 24-port version is $3,760 and the 48-port version is $6,900. They’re available now.
