SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER
Stay informed! Sign up to get expert advice and insight delivered direct to your inbox
HP Debuts New Campus Switch Modules, SDN App
HP products are among the many new technologies launching at this week's Interop. Others include EnGenius' WLAN management platform and Fiber Mountain's updated orchestration system.
Marcia Savage
April 27, 2015
3 Min Read
HP rolled out new campus networking products that support 802.11ac Wave 2 access points and software-defined networking. The company also introduced a new SDN application, the Network Visualizer. The products are among a raft of new technologies unveiled at Interop, which kicked off Monday in Las Vegas.
The HP 5400R zl2 Switch Series v3 modules are designed to support the mobility requirements of today's campus networks by using HP's sixth-generation networking silicon. HP claims the ASIC provides four times better throughput and three times lower latency compared to the Cisco Catalyst 4507R-E.
HP also touted the new Open Flow-supporting switch modules as providing better SDN scalability than the competition by processing up to 24 more flows, which supports multiple concurrent network services such as security and optimization.
The 5400R v3 modules feature HP Smart Rate multi-gigabit ports to support 802.11 ac Wave 2 gear without the need for new cabling. The modules include support for 2.5 Gbps and 5 Gbps Ethernet, which two industry groups are pushing to standardize.
HP joins other vendors like Cisco in arguing that enterprises need to prepare for a leap in wireless bandwidth with 11ac Wave 2 products and the greater than 1 Gbps Ethernet connections they will require. Using 2.5 Gbps and 5 Gbps Ethernet ports allow companies to use their existing cabling, they say. However, some wireless experts have argued that 802.11ac Wave 2 doesn't require multi-gigabit backhaul links.
The HP Network Visualizer SDN App is a new addition to HP's SDN App Store, which officially opened for business at Interop New York last fall. The new app, which integrates with Active Directory, is designed to speed IT troubleshooting by allowing administrators to identify problems without needing to look up a user's IP address or MAC address.
HP also updated its Network Protection SDN application by adding intrusion prevention as a service, and added new capabilities to its Network Optimizer SDN application.
HP's new switch modules will be available on May 1. The new SDN application will be available in June.
Here are a few other products unveiled at Interop:
EnGenius Technologies launched its ezMaster Network Management Plaform. The Web-based platform, which targets distributed organizations, campuses and managed service providers, provides centralized provisioning and monitoring of EnGenius' Neutron Series controller switches and wireless access points. The ezMaster, a finalist in the mobility category for Best of Interop, can scale up to 1,000 APs and can be installed on a physical or cloud-based server. No licensing or subscription fees are required.
SDN startup Fiber Mountain announced an updated version of its Alpine Orchestration System (AOS). The software, a core component of Fiber Mountain's Glass Core architecture, is a centralized orchestration system for managing both physical and logical resources. Fiber Mountain's Glass Core is a Best of Interop finalist in the data center category.
Narra Systems, a startup focused on cloud-based resource management for lab networks, unveiled a new capability in its Full Automation System Testing (nFast) platform. Discover Node Attributes (nDNA) enables test lab workers to track cloud-based assets via an auto-discovering algorithm.
About the Author
You May Also Like
More Insights
