Interop: 10 Gigabit Ethernet Advances Into Data Centers

With 10 Gigabit Ethernet technologies working their way into data centers, Mellanox Technologies is demonstrating how complete end-to-end connectivity configurations can reduce the total cost of 10 Gigabit Ethernet applications at the Interop Conference and Expo this week.

Mellanox, which specializes in connectivity solutions for servers and storage in data centers, has teamed up with Arista Networks and Supermicro in the demo. Arista is providing its 7200T switches, while Supermicro is supplying its Xeon 5500 processor-based Supermicro 2U Twin2 SuperServers.

By combining products from the three vendors, Mellanox said total ownership costs are contained by reducing cabling, power consumption, and space usage. At the same time, powerful computational machines with 10-Gb performance stats are enabled.

"With virtualization and server consolidation as its main pillars, a cloud data center design requires a higher throughput and lower latency network solution," said Mansour Karam, Arista's director of business development, in a statement. Supermicro's Don Clegg noted that its powerful servers are able to achieve advanced x86 server performance per watt in the configuration. Clegg is Supermicro's VP of marketing and business development.

Mellanox is also demonstrating its low-latency Ethernet technology at Interop where it has set up an application with low-latency Ethernet running over its ConnectX EN 10 Gigabit Ethernet adapters at line rate latency of 3 microseconds.

"Enterprise data centers are adopting converged I/O solutions to help reduce costs for power, cooling, IT management, and server consolidation," Mellanox CTO Michael Kagan said. "Low-latency Ethernet enables end users to derive tangible performance benefits from their mission-critical transaction intensive applications while reducing power and consolidating their SAN and LAN traffic."

Attend a Webcast on data center consolidation. It happens June 3. Find out more and register.