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Extreme Networks reveals Super Scale Ethernet modules
Fri, 16th Nov 2012
FYI, this story is more than a year old

Extreme Networks has announced new 100GbE and 40 GbE modules for its Open Fabric switch, the BlackDiamond X8. High density ‘XL’ 100GbE and 40 GbE switch modules.

The company says the products will offer industry leading scale, supporting up to a million routes, Virtual Machines (VMs) and flow entries in the network.

In a second announcement the  network solutions provider also revealed support of Big Switch Networks Software Defined Networking (SDN) applications. They say it will provide "progressive and centralixed methods to achieve network monitoring and virtualize networks."

According to Extreme, the 100/40GbE XL modules help to scale the network for a variety of highly virtualized multi-tenant cloud data centers, Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) and data center core deployments.

With a capability to scale to a million route entries, addresses and flows, and to logically segment Multi-tenant networks with L2 broadcast domains, the company sees these as critical elements in building next-generation data center networks.

“Infonetics expects strong growth of 40GbE today and 100GbE in the future with revenue combining to be $1.4B in 2016, as cloud and virtualized data center networks continue the trend of hosting rich services, storage and video,” says Sam Barnett, directing analyst for Infonetics.

"As vendors such as Extreme Networks offer increased scale and higher density for 40/100GbE with their data center switches, it increases the flexibility for virtualized network designs and the performance and capacity available to enterprise/SP data centers, cloud hosting companies and Internet Exchanges.”

The company is showcased these new modules, along with SDN applications from Big Switch networks, at its booth, #1000, at the Super Computing conference, SC/12, in Salt Lake City this week.

The BlackDiamond X8 is a high capacity modular Ethernet switch for data centers that was just honored with CRN’s Tech Innovator of the Year award and has received Network Computing UK’s ‘Data Center Product of the Year’ for 2012.

"The ECIX next generation Internet exchange network requires innovations on multiple levels," says Stefan Wahl, CEO of Peering GmbH and Managing Director of ECIX.

"The options provided by Extreme Networks fit perfectly to our needs as the innovative designs of the BlackDiamond X8 and the Summit X670 switches combine to allow for superb scalability without costly modifications of the data center infrastructure.

"High port density and availability of 40Gbe and 100 GbE, as well as the reserves per slot provided by the high performance switch engines and the option to use MPLS in the network reduces costs and the use of space at our locations. Our customers benefit directly from these advantages.

"The installed Extreme Network systems are the basis for the expansion of the ECIX services and open a path into the future without making compromises today.”