Dell goes networking, acquires Force10.

By Larry Dignan | July 20, 2011, 4:53am PDT

Summary: Dell said it will wrap Force10’s networking gear into its data center portfolio, which features servers, storage and services.

Dell said Wednesday that it will acquire Force10 Networks as it aims to move into networking.

Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

In a statement, Dell said it will wrap Force10’s networking gear into its data center portfolio, which features servers, storage and services.

The big picture here is that servers, storage and networking are increasingly being bundled together. And on the networking front, it appears that every hardware vendor is nibbling at Cisco Systems. Cisco entered the server market with its Unified Computing System. HP responded by buying 3Com and hurting Cisco margins. Cisco is cutting costs and jobs to deal with the new market realities. On Tuesday, Intel said it planned to buy Fulcrum Microsystems, a fabless chip company that makes Ethernet fabrics. Now Dell is buying Force10.

Simply put, every tech vendor is looking to create these data center building blocks of storage, servers and networking for cloud computing.

Force10 has almost $200 million in annual revenue. Dell characterized the Force10 purchase in the same mold as Compellent and EqualLogic. The plan is to take the technology and products and move it through Dell’s sales channels.

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Delivering high-performance networking to the mass market

From scientific research labs to petrochemical corporations, users of high-performance computing (HPC) clusters are constantly looking for ways to increase interconnect throughput in order to maximize cluster performance. Increasingly, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) interconnect solutions offer a compelling option for many organizations. The potential for reducing infrastructure costs, converging network technologies and simplifying IT management has led organizations in a range of fields to adopt GbE solutions for their HPC environments. As network hardware vendors continue to improve throughput and reduce latency of these solutions, GbE could continue to attract more and more new customers.

For more than a decade, Force10 Networks has been working with IBM to deliver high-performance GbE networking solutions for HPC. Today, Force10 is collaborating with IBM to provide end-to-end 40 GbE solutions for HPC environments while bringing the benefits of high-performance networking to mass markets.

IBM AND FORCE10 HELP CREATE ONE OF EUROPE’S MOST POWERFUL SUPERCOMPUTERS 

Combining solutions from IBM and Force10 enabled Germany’s Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) to build one of the most powerful supercomputers in Europe and the world. The organization operates a 294,912-core IBM® System Blue Gene®/P environment with Force10 ExaScale E1200i switches to help scientists and researchers solve complex problems and produce detailed models. The switches provide a transparent, high-speed interconnect with the storage system in a dense architecture. With this configuration, the supercomputer—named JUGENE—can provide a net storage capacity of 4.3 PB at an aggregated bandwidth of 66 GB per second.

“We needed a communication switch which was capable of taking over 200 10 GbE ports,” says Klaus Wolkersdorfer, head of the HPC systems division at JSC. “Only the Force10 switch was capable of doing this.” Since the initial deployment in 2007, JUGENE has expanded to more than 800 10 GbE ports.

With a peak performance of 1 petaFLOPS, JUGENE provides HPC users with substantially greater performance than the previous system, all while retaining a small footprint and controlling energy consumption. Given the performance of the system, it is not surprising that JUGENE is attracting new users to JSC from all across Europe.

FORCE10 OFFERS END-TO-END 40 GBE SOLUTIONS

Performance improvements in networking hardware are spurring continued adoption of GbE for HPC. Building on the success of 10 GbE, Force10 and other vendors are introducing products that can deliver even greater bandwidth. While the cost of 100 GbE products could put them out of reach for some organizations, 40 GbE solutions can help many organizations strike an optimum balance between performance and price.

To meet the rising demand for these high-bandwidth solutions, Force10 recently introduced the S-Series S4810 10/40 GbE top-of-rack switch, a high-density 48-port 10 GbE switch with four 40 GbE uplinks. The company also announced a new 40 GbE line card for its ExaScale core switch/router. These 40 GbE products will soon be offered for IBM System Blue Gene/P environments. In addition, a 40 GbE line card will be supported on IBM Intelligent Cluster™ integrated solutions and HPC clusters based on IBM System x® iDataPlex® servers.

“The new Force10 products enable organizations to achieve end-to-end, core-to-edge 40 GbE connectivity,” says Arpit Joshipura, chief marketing officer at Force10. “By combining these 40 GbE products with powerful IBM systems, organizations gain the performance and throughput they need for solving complex problems plus the density and energy-efficiency for controlling costs.”

Because the Force10 ExaScale switch remains at the core of the networking solution whether organizations are using 1, 10 or 40 GbE, organizations can migrate to 40 GbE solutions from earlier platforms while minimizing the upheaval to the network. Tools provided through the Force10 Open Automation Framework can help organizations simplify device management and switch provisioning so they can benefit from high-performance networking without added management complexity.

IBM AND FORCE10 OPEN HPC TO NEW USERS AND USE CASES

By pairing dense, high-performance, end-to-end GbE networking solutions with IBM System x servers, Force10 and IBM are helping to bring the power of HPC to a broader audience. Organizations that might not have used HPC in the past can assemble clusters of cost-effective industry-standard servers and capitalize on speeds of 10 Gbps—and now 40 Gbps—for a wide range of HPC applications.

High-performance GbE networking also creates opportunities that reach beyond traditional HPC use cases. Some organizations could take advantage of 40 GbE throughput to integrate resources from multiple data centers and build high-performance private clouds, opening a new world of possibilities for HPC.

(Reference : http://www-148.ibm.com/bin/newsletter/tool/landingPage.cgi?lpId=3844)

Two of the world's five fastest supercomputers use Force10 ethernet switches and routers!

Force10 Networks Inc, a provider of networking technology to data centres, today said that its Ethernet switch/router space solutions contribute to the network performance of two of the world's top five most powerful supercomputers.

The company said that the two supercomputers concerned appear in the most recent Top500.org list. The third-ranked supercomputer worldwide, Roadrunner, at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and Germany's Forschungszentrum Juelich Jugene supercomputer, which is ranked fifth, both make use of Force10 E-Series switch/router to provide a dynamic connectivity to the supercomputer's high speed Ethernet networks.

Force10 also said that its switch/router solutions provide 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GbE) interconnect functionality to Europe's fastest supercomputer, Jugene, at Germany's Forschungszentrum Juelich facility where the Force10 E-Series E1200 with more than 200 10 GbE ports is deployed.

The Top500 project was started in 1993 to provide a reliable basis for tracking and detecting trends in high performance computing. Supercomputers are ranked twice a year based on performance.

(Source : http://www.tradingmarkets.com)

The unique advantage of Force10 Command Line Interface (CLI) that is nearly identical to Cisco’s

SAN JOSE, Calif., February 24, 2010 – Force10 Networks, Inc., the global technology leader that data centers, service providers and enterprises rely on when the network is their business, today announced an aggressive new promotion that incents HP resellers to continue to offer a standards-based alternative to Cisco. Resellers that want to offer best-of-breed Ethernet networking solutions from Force10 will receive an improved margin and a lower-priced competitive solution than a comparable Cisco 6500 configuration.

“We’ve seen ongoing channel disruption since Cisco introduced its Unified Computing System / blade server technology in 2009. It intensified this week with the announcement that Cisco will terminate its channel alliance with HP. We see a fast-emerging opportunity to build relationships with partners that now need an alternative to Cisco,” said Andrew Stewart, vice president, worldwide channels and sales operations at Force10 Networks.

Under the new program, Force10 will help resellers and distribution partners like Bell Micro, Tech Data and NHR to define attractive best-of-breed solutions geared for the data center, 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) and video applications.

Force10’s high density and resilient Ethernet switching and routing solutions are standards-based and offer the unique advantage of Command Line Interface (CLI) that is nearly identical to Cisco’s, thereby enabling seamless insertion. Moreover, Force10’s power and cooling metrics are up to 80% lower than Cisco’s comparable products. Also, the total cost of ownership (TCO) of Force10’s non-blocking line-rate solutions offer significant savings, ranging from thousands to millions of dollars over typical depreciation schedules used by enterprises today.

Industry Transition Opportunity

Called the “C300 Play-to-Win,” the promotion is designed to exploit the large installed base of Cisco’s Catalyst 6509 chassis, which has now reached end of life. Under terms of the promotion that runs through the end of September 2010, Force10 will sell at a lower price its chassis-based C-Series C300 switch against any new Cisco 6500 Series chassis. Moreover, authorized reseller partners who generate more than $1 million in qualified C300 switch net sales to Force10 will receive an additional 10 percent cash rebate.

According to Force10, its C300 chassis solution surpasses the density and switching performance of the Catalyst 6509, supporting 384 line rate GbE ports and 64 line rate 10 GbE ports, in the same footprint as the Catalyst 4510R. The C300’s compact design allows customers to support more network capacity with less space while reducing cooling and power costs.

For Force10 authorized resellers who would like more information, please log in to our Partner Portal. If you are not a Force10 authorized reseller but would like to join, please register here.

About Force10 Networks

Force10 Networks is the global technology leader that data center, service provider and enterprise customers rely on when the network is their business. The company’s high performance solutions are designed to deliver new economics by virtualizing and automating Ethernet networks. Force10’s high density and resilient Ethernet switching and routing products increase network availability, agility and efficiency while reducing power and cooling costs. Force10 provides 24x7 service and support capabilities to its global customer base in more than 60 countries worldwide. For more information on Force10 Networks, please visit www.force10networks.com.

(Source : Force10 Networks: News: Press Releases)