CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- GE Intelligent Platforms today announced the NETernity™ GBX460 rugged 6U OpenVPX data plane switch module, the first 10 Gigabit Ethernet solution of its kind to support high throughput interprocessor communication (IPC) between 10GigE-enabled processing nodes for deployed defense and aerospace applications. With 20 (optionally 24) 10GigE data plane ports and 16 GigE control plane ports, the GBX460 supports non-blocking, low latency data transfers across a multiprocessing cluster at up to full wire speed, enabling new levels of performance for the most demanding ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) applications. It is designed to provide a high speed interface for sensor I/O, IPC and data distribution to the back end processing clusters typically found in C4I (command, control, communications, computers and intelligence) infrastructures.

The GBX460 is an unmanaged Layer 2 switch that can support multiple OpenVPX slots/module profiles for maximum flexibility and throughput. ”An unmanaged switch like the GBX460 is ideal for customer applications requiring the switch to be fully functional for network-connected devices as soon as possible after power-on; this is a capability required by a number of military programs,” said Rob McKeel, President, Military & Aerospace at GE Intelligent Platforms.

A fully managed Layer 2/3 version of the GBX460 will be announced early in 2011.

GE Intelligent Platforms