In mid April Dell announced decided to release its S5000 networking switch. The switch comes with both FCoE and FC capabilities, a pay as you grow modularity that allows user users to allocate budgets compared to fixed port switches and also a high density LAN/SAN convergence.
The 1u top of rack unit 10/40GbE switch allows a people to populate from a single module instead of four like many do. It’s the first of its kind that allows you to pay-as-you-grow Ethernet and Fibre Channel connectivity. This is critical because if you decide to upgrade in the future so you don’t have to replace or add more gear. For companies that are looking to save some money and space this is a switch that will save you money in the long run. The switch will be available starting this month.
In addition Dell also announced their software defined networking or SDN, Active Fabric. With the amount of East-West traffic between data centers and private clouds, the Active Fabric provides any-to any multipath network that is extremely flexible with almost everyone using virtualized data centers and private clouds. By providing a flat network, Dell hopes users will get less of a time delay and a high density. To go along with the new SDN, Dell has also launched the Active Fabric Manager. The manager’s software will let users be able to install and manage their fabric without network engineers. The step by step instructions are so precise that users can simply design he fabric they way they want. By installing this program multiple people in a given company can monitor the fabric without disrupting the network. It’s a pretty cool idea that many businesses will look into in the future. Dell has taken another step forward in the IT world with the hopes of changing it for the better.