Advantech Announces Open Top-of-Rack Switch for Software Defined Networks

Bad Homburg, Germany (PRWEB) October 17, 2013

Advantech (TWSE: 2395.TW) today announced a new generation of switches from its Networks and Communications Group. The ESP-9212 Top-of-Rack switch is optimized for use in software-defined networks (SDN) requiring 10 and 40 Gigabit Ethernet connectivity. It combines a high performance, low-latency Broadcom StrataXGS® Trident II BCM56854 switch for up to 680Gbps of forwarding bandwidth and a quad-core Intel® Xeon® E3-1265L v2 processor, providing a powerful and flexible platform that supports enhanced features essential for top-of-the-rack deployment in modern data center switching installations.

“Data center networks require increasingly denser 10GbE and 40GbE connectivity at the access and aggregation layers in order to address the higher speed network interface cards being deployed in servers and the increased link utilization due to the pervasive use of virtualization” said Franz Wei, Vice President, Advantech Networks & Communications Group. “Our open platform approach enables SDN solution providers with a flexible and high performance OEM-Ready product upon which they can easily deploy new and enhanced features to meet next generation data center switching needs.”

With fiber support for six 40GbE QSFP ports and forty-four 10GbE SFP+ ports in a 1U rackmount design, the ESP-9212 can be used to build highly scalable, feature-rich, top-of-rack switches, and aggregation equipment to connect big data, cloud and optimized workloads in the data center.

Redundant, hot swappable, AC or DC power supplies and fans, along with IPMI 2.0 and OpenIPMI hardware management interfaces provide the high availability and management features which equip the switch for managing business-critical traffic.

In addition, the front-to-rear or rear-to-front cooling capabilities of the ESP-9212 help to reduce air conditioning costs by matching the airflow of other servers in the rack. One 10/100/1000 Ethernet RJ45 port and two serial ports are available for out-of-band management with three USB ports available for installation and maintenance needs. Two 128GB SSD devices within the chassis provide storage for boot images allowing external network nodes to be loaded and booted from the switch.

“Based on a wide choice of standard compute, switch and packet processing platforms, Advantech is able to adapt to the level of integration and customization appropriate to each customer’s requirements and business model” said Paul Stevens, Telecom Sector Marketing Director, Advantech Networks and Communications Group. “Our second generation switches are a perfect example upon which Network Equipment Providers can mix and match x86 performance with the latest switching silicon to offer cost-optimized and differentiated SDN solutions.”

Advantech will be showcasing the ESP-9212 and other high performance packet processing engines which bring together their x86, Switch, NPU and Acceleration design capabilities at the SDN & OpenFlow World Congress in Bad Homburg, Germany on Oct 16-18, 2013.

PDF Print