A monumental shift is underway in the data center – a shift towards greater density, ubiquitous virtualization, and increased power-efficiency. The seamlessness of computing from the personal device, to data centers, to the cloud, enables IT to react faster, scale farther, and deliver more services today than ever before.
However, scaling causes a clash between the legacy physical architectures and the new, highly-virtualized models. As a result, many IT organizations are putting off necessary evolution of their data center architectures due to the fear of IT service disruption, added management and operational complexity. Networks play a vital role in this complexity as VMs and workloads constantly move within data centers, stressing network capacity and changing data traffic patterns dramatically within seconds.
Dell Networking has been focused on solving this next generation of challenges faced by our customers, and so I’m proud to announce our most robust networking solution, the Dell Networking S6000 switch for data center customers looking for industry-leading density, throughput, and energy-efficiency to help evolve and scale their network architectures:
- High density: 1RU form factor provides 32 40GbE ports, or 96 10GbE ports plus 8 40GbE ports to reduce physical data center footprints further and deliver up to twice the density as standard ToR switches today
- Flexible: Deploy as top-of-rack, end-of-row, or middle-of-row configurations
- High Throughput: Up to 2.56Tbps, twice the bandwidth of standard ToR switches today, coupled with low-latency operation of 600ns
- Energy Efficient: Part of Dell’s Fresh Air cooling portfolio, capable of operating at high temperatures so you can run your data centers warmer and save on power bills
But how will this help address the new set of networking challenges our customers face? Here are a few highlights:
- Scale virtual footprints with smaller, efficient data centers: Delivering the higher density in a smaller form factor reduces physical expansion and CAPEX needs, while delivering the bandwidth to manage up to 6x more workloads
- Expand modern data center VM Mobility : Help bridge East-West traffic between virtualized and non-virtualized networks with the new VMware NSX controller, introduced at VMworld 2013.
- Simplify operations and enable Automated Deployments: Like the rest of the S-series portfolio, the S6000 supports Bare Metal Provisioning (BMP) and other capabilities to simplify deployment in the Open Automation Framework, as well as Dell ReadyRails™ mounting kits for rack installation under 15 seconds
At Dell Networking, we believe greater automation and workload awareness are the only way data center networks will be able to keep up with the transition to the extreme levels of virtualization and cloud-integration appearing are around the corner. Gartner’s 2013 Virtualization Hype Cycle placed “VM Live Migration” in the “Slope of Enlightenment” category – it seems not too long ago that this was a sci-fi-like new technology, but now it’s a mainstay of how data center workloads operate. With Dell Networking solutions, our goal is to let your networks evolve with the pace of technology so you’re ready to implement your IT plans and exceed your role as a partner in the success of your enterprise.
If you’d like to read more about this new solution, please check out the press release, and if you’re at VMWorld 2013, check out this new solution in person and meet us in person, or connect with us always through comments on this blog or via Twitter @dellnetworking. And remember to visit dellnetworking.com to learn more!
[1] Results based on August 2013 internal Dell analysis, vs S4810, AD G13001879
[2] Based on July 2013 analysis comparing Dell S6000 ReadyRails™ kits to comparable Dell systems with ReadyRails kits. See video here: http://www.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/global/products/video/en/readyrails_rack_mounting_kit?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04&~ck=mn, AD G13001915
