Extreme's new BlackDiamond X8, fitting in one-third of a 7-foot rack, supports 768 10Gbit/s ports or 192 40Gbit/s ports. It can handle 1.28 Tbit/s in each of eight slots and has a latency of less than 3 microseconds port-to-port, the company claims.
Extreme is also announcing the Summit X670 top-of-rack switch, which supports 48 10Gbit/s ports with four 40Gbit/s uplink ports. A second version has 64 10Gbit/s ports and omits the uplinks.
Why this matters
The important thing here is that Extreme is working to keep up with new high-end switches from the likes of Arista Networks Inc.
Ethernet chips are now advanced enough to support a new generation of switches at a time when vendors are starting to peddle data-center overhauls. Consultant Nick Lippis of Lippis Enterprises tested a handful of them last year and noted on Twitter that he knows of eight -- no, nine -- new top-of-rack switches being announced at Interop.
In other words, it's not the time to fall behind, in top-of-rack switches or in the data-center core.
Oh, and the "one big switch" crack? That's really how Extreme is talking about its new product (it's not a Light Reading joke).
For more
Here's more about that new generation of Ethernet switches.
- Switch Chips Bloom at the High End
- 10G Ethernet Switches Pass the Test
- Friday Show & Tell: Testing the New Ethernet
— Craig Matsumoto, West Coast Editor, Light Reading