Dell today announced new additions to its networking portfolio
to help customers accelerate transitions to high-performance
converged, virtualized and private cloud environments. These
include Dell’s new Active Fabric solutions for SDN-enabled designs
along with next-generation management software – Dell Active Fabric
Manager – and the Dell Networking S5000 modular LAN/SAN switching
platform.
Dell Networking: Accelerating Data Center
Transformation
Several factors in today’s data centers have operators
considering new and different network architectures beyond the
traditional three-tier, monolithic systems of the past. Factors
include: Virtualization and new workloads changing the network
traffic patterns and demands; Software-defined networking (SDN) and
the promise of network programmability; convergence of formerly
distinct technology silos; and input/output consolidation with
migration to 10GbE server platforms. These dynamics present CIOs
not just architectural challenges but also budgetary and
operational considerations.
Industry analysts at Gartner cite these transformative aspects
in its inaugural Magic Quadrant for Data Center Network
Infrastructure. “The data center network market has been
transformed with new architectures, new technologies and vendors
specifically targeting solutions to address the changing size and
density of the data center, shifts in traffic patterns, and the
increasing requirement to simplify network operations.” 1
Dell Active Fabric – New Data Centers Need New Network
Architectures
Dell Active Fabric describes its approach to providing customers
a modern network architecture that takes advantage of today’s
technology and provides an easily-scalable path for future
growth.
Dell Active Fabric provides a flat, fast, any-to-any multipath
network architecture that is flexible and ideally suited for the
growing amount of East-West traffic in today’s virtualized data
centers and private clouds. Active Fabric solutions flatten the
traditional data center network architecture using high-density and
low-latency, fixed-form factor 10/40GbE switches that can be
deployed quickly and easily while reaching to hyperscale
proportions.
According to Gartner’s Rightsizing the Enterprise Data Center
Network report, “Newer small form factor core devices can enable
network managers to reduce capital costs by 30 percent to 70
percent, and save 30 percent or more on operations expenses,
compared with chassis-based switches.” 2
In line with this, compared to traditional chassis-based network
designs, Dell Active Fabric solutions provide up to 59 percent cost
savings and consume up to 77 percent less power.3
SDN is a logical extension to the enhanced network flexibility
Dell Active Fabric solutions provide. The software abstraction
layer that SDN delivers is designed to enable open programmability,
making infrastructure flexible and adaptable to different customer
environments. Additionally, Dell is one of the only vendors to
offer a complete and unbiased approach to SDN encompassing
networking virtualization overlays (NVO), OpenFlow and legacy
interface capabilities.
- Dell Active Fabric supports NVOs using
the leading hypervisors from Microsoft, VMware and OpenStack.
- Dell Active Fabric supports Open
Flow-based controllers from leading vendors including Big Switch
Networks.
- Dell Active Fabric also supports legacy
programmatic interfaces including Telnet/CLI, TCL, REST, SNMP, Perl
and Python scripting
Defining features of Dell Active Fabric include:
- Purpose-built for virtualized,
converged, and SDN environments
- High-performance 10GbE & 40GbE
L2/L3 multipath fabrics
- LAN/SAN convergence using Data Center
Bridging (iSCSI, Fibre Channel (FC) and Fibre Channel over Ethernet
(FCoE)
- OpenFlow support
- Standard northbound and southbound
interfaces
Dell Active Fabric Manager – Industry-Leading Fabric
Automation Software
The Dell Active Fabric Manager is an industry-innovating
software tool that automates the tasks associated with planning,
designing, building and monitoring fabrics. Dell Active Fabric
Manager can reduce deployment time up to 86 percent compared to a
completely manual process.4
Dell Active Fabric Manager features include:
- Design wizard – Greatly
simplifies the mapping process using an intuitive graphical
interface, performing all the necessary calculations to present the
optimal fabric design, eliminating guesswork and errors.
- Automated provisioning, validation
and configuration - Provides a step-by-step approach to
translate a fabric design to a completely functional deployment and
eliminates numerous command line interface entries, a
time-consuming and error-prone process.
- Easy integration, role-based
access –Dell Active Fabric Manager abstracts the fabric as a
single entity, not at the device level, allowing other tools in the
data center to integrate easily. Coupled with this, role-based
access allows multiple departments (e.g. server and storage
administrators) to monitor different aspects of fabric performance
without disrupting the underlying network operations.
Dell Networking S5000 – Slim, Modular Unified Storage
Switch
The Dell Networking S5000 is Dell’s first 1U 10/40GbE
top-of-rack LAN/SAN switch equipped with native FC and FCoE
capabilities. The S5000’s innovative system design is powered by an
industry-hardened, and feature-rich operating system for maximum
dependability and uptime. Dell Open Automation framework provides
integrated automation, scripting and programmable management for
enhanced network flexibility in virtualized environments.
Key features include:
- Pay-as-you grow modularity, designed
to scale – provides for improved deployment flexibility and IT
budget allocation compared to fixed-port switches. The S5000
accommodates four modules allowing customers to populate a single
module and add as necessary instead of buying all four modules at
once.
- High-density LAN/SAN convergence
– saves on the number of switches and rack space required, the
S5000 has up to 1.3 to 2.6 times the port density per rack unit
compared to industry alternatives.5 The S5000 has a maximum of 64 x
10GbE ports, or 48 x Ethernet/FC ports with 16 x 10GbE ports.
- Feature-rich storage networking
– complete support for iSCSI, RoCE, NAS, FCoE and FC fabric
services, all on the same platform.
- Future-ready design for maximum
investment protection – with the modularity and system design,
the S5000 hardware is future-ready to support newer features and
options when released without needing to sacrifice existing
infrastructure investment.
- Easy integration, established
interoperability with leading adapter, switch and storage
vendors including Broadcom, Brocade, Emulex, Intel and Qlogic.
Quotes
‘We’re challenging conventional wisdom with new products and
solutions designed to accelerate our customers’ migration to
virtualized and cloud data center environments.” said Tom Burns,
vice president and general manager, Dell Networking. “We’re excited
about these new offerings and their ability to simplify operations,
boost performance and improve economics.”
“Because we have a flexible and efficient network configuration
that is automated, this allows an up to 50 percent decrease in
maintenance and network troubleshooting,” said Qu Jing, project
implementation manager, YunYun.com. “The Active Fabric architecture
effectively eliminates network bottlenecks to achieve one-to-one
instant network convergence.”
“Dell Active Fabric networking technology is leading edge,
providing 40G connectivity to our storage fabric, and 10G switching
for east/west traffic,” said Kevin Dunn, vice president for
Business Information Services – Infrastructure and Operations at
First Command Financial Services. “It gives us the ability to move
workloads across our Dell infrastructure quickly and easily,
maximizing our hardware utilization and increasing the value of our
investments.”
“Dell’s Active Fabric Manager is a valuable asset for MCA in all
stages of our customer engagement,” said James Bender, Director of
Technical Services at channel partner Mike Collins Associates. “I
am extremely impressed with the intuitive workflows for designing,
deploying and monitoring in a single management pane, and greatly
simplifying the sales process.”
“Being a university, we’re evaluating the S5000 because we have
diverse range of storage systems and appreciate the protocol
flexibility,” said Yaohui Jin, Prof., Deputy Director, Network
& Information Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University ON. “This
platform will allow us to standardize on a single networking
infrastructure instead of having to buy and deploy different
switches for each. We expect this will help us simplify our
operations as well as reduce our capital expenditures.”
“We’re interested in the S5000 as its first switch we’ve
seen with these capabilities in a 1U top-of-the-rack form factor.
This is very important for our Datacenter network configuration,”
said Maurizio Davini, CTO , IT Center, University of Pisa Italy.
“We also like the modular aspect so we can scale as we need, while
saving CapEx and OpEx in the meantime.”
“Networking professionals need solutions that solve real
business problems today, and SDN, while very promising, is still
very nascent,” said Bob Laliberte, Senior Analyst of IT
Infrastructure and Networking at Enterprise Strategy Group. “Dell
Networking is expanding its product line to introduce offerings
into the market that tackle today’s immediate needs while enabling
organizations to take advantage of future developments.”
Availability
Dell 10G and 40G Active Fabric solutions are available worldwide
now from Dell and its global PartnerDirect channel partners. Active
Fabric Manager v1.5 will be available globally in late May 2013.
Dell Networking S5000 will be available globally in July 2013.
Dell at Interop
Visit Dell at Interop Las Vegas 2013 (booth 1127) to see Active
Fabric, Active Fabric Manager, Dell Networking along with the rest
of the Dell Enterprise Solutions portfolio.
Additional Information
Dell Networking
Dell SDN point of view whitepaper
Dell at Interop Las Vegas 2013
Dell Tech Center - Networking
- Dell Active Fabric
- Dell Active Fabric Manager
- Dell Networking S5000
About Dell
Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) listens to customers and delivers
innovative technology and services that give them the power to do
more. For more information, visit www.dell.com.
About Dell Networking
Dell Networking plays an integral role in how the company
delivers innovative end-to-end IT solutions including servers,
storage and converged infrastructures. Dell Networking is a pioneer
in delivering next-generation networking architectures as well as
blade switching and virtualized input/output (I/O) to provide the
scale, performance and economics demanded by today’s enterprise,
Web 2.0 and cloud data centers.
Dell is a trademark of Dell Inc. Dell disclaims any proprietary
interest in the marks and names of others.
1 Magic Quadrant for Data Center Network Infrastructure,
February 2013, Gartner, Inc.
2 Rightsizing the Enterprise Data Center Network, March 2013,
Gartner, Inc.
3 Based on March 2013 internal Dell lab results using industry
standard network design criteria, comparing Dell S4810 and Z9000
switches to Cisco Nexus 7000 and 5000 series switches.
4 Results based on March 2013 internal Dell testing using 2
Spine and 4 Leaf devices.
5 Results based on March 2013 Dell Networking S5000 comparison
to Cisco Nexus 5548 and Brocade VDX 6730.
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