Extreme Networks Redefines High End Switching

The new offerings include a BlackDiamond 8900-xl module that can scale up to over 100 GB-per-second and a Summit X480 stackable switch that supports throughput speeds of up to 40 GB-per-second.

According to Shehzad Merchant, senior director for data center strategy and market development, the new switches are intended to provide the bandwidth that will be needed to create intelligent networks required to handle all the network traffic generated by virtual machines.

Each virtual machine, Merchant noted, not only has a virtual switch that contributes traffic on the network, but the virtual machines themselves will be dynamically moving across the network. As that next generation of virtualization evolves, the bandwidth requirements needed to support all that activity will be substantially greater than they are today. The Extreme Network switches are designed to support the hundreds of thousands of MAC address and IP addresses that these systems will generate, he said.

In addition, Merchant said that IT organizations will want to create isolated subnets on those networks that will require switches that support Level 3 networking.