Foundry Expands Data Center Portfolio with High Density 10GbE and Gigabit Ports

Foundry Networks has expanded its next generation data center portfolio with two new high-density interface modules for its BigIron RX Series switches and the NetIron MLX Series routers, enabling a density of up to 512 ports of 10GbE and 1536 ports of GbE in a single system.
The BigIron 16-port 10GbE SFP+ module (RX-BI16XG), and NetIron MLX 48-port GbE MRJ21 module (NI-MLX-1Gx48-T), which deliver more than twice the 10GbE and GbE density of their nearest competitors, are aimed at data center expansions and HPC clusters.


The product launches are part of Foundry Network's new vision for data center evolution. Key requirements for driving the next wave in data design are capacity, performance, flexibility and convergence. Foundry anticipates the migration of many mainstream servers from gigabit Ethernet (GbE) to 10GbE connectivity. This drives the need for data center network capacity, including the capacity of the data center interface to the backbone/Internet. In addition, virtualization is driving the consolidation of applications and services into fewer servers and network devices. Foundry's advanced data center vision and products enable IT managers to utilize virtualized network services, such as virtual LANs, multiple virtual routing, switching and security domains, and advanced application switching and service abstraction to extend the benefits of virtualization into the network, thereby accelerating consolidation of applications over a unified virtualized infrastructure.





Foundry's new 16-port 10GbE module offers advanced Quality of Service (QoS) functionality, Virtual Output Queue (VOQ) and the lossless Clos fabric-based architecture of the BigIron RX series. The 10GbE module augments the current BigIron RX series GbE capacity of up to 1,536 GbE ports per system. The module has a U.S. list price of $34,995 and general availability is expected in August 2008.


The new 48-port gigabit Ethernet (GbE) MRJ21 interface module is designed specifically for all four chassis types of the NetIron MLX Series routers. Each interface module will have eight MRJ21 connectors, with each connector supporting six ports of GbE interface. The 48-port module will more than double the GbE density on the NetIron MLX routers giving them the highest GbE capacity and lowest power consumption for routers in their class. In addition, the NetIron MLX routers offers network scalability with up to 32 10GbE links per link aggregation and sophisticated link aggregation and equal cost multi-path (ECMP) load sharing algorithms. The module has a U.S. list price of $34,995 and general availability is expected in Q4 2008.http://www.foundrynet.com