Cisco and its Nexus switch (not just any old switch but the coming control for data )
Cisco Systems is introducing a network switch for corporations grappling with rapidly growing Internet data transfers and the increased use of applications that draw on remote data storage, known as cloud computing. The switch, called the Nexus 7000, will provide a sharp increase in traffic capacity over the company's current products, to 15 trillion bits of data a second.
But this, as the adsmight say, is not just a switch, it's the new design of data centres, power saver and possibly the shaper of the ethernet.
The switch could transfer all 90,000 Netflix movies in 38.4secs or send a 2Mp digital image to every human on earth
in 28 minutes and Cisco is quite reasonably bet ting on the rapidly expanding data demands of the consumer Internet. Its Nexus system, which will eventually replace a product line that represents about a third of its $35bn business, involved $1bn in R&D, and the efforts of more than 500 engineers in over 4 years.
Cisco sees the market for the product as corporate computing operations and Internet service providers strugge to keep up with the torrent of data produced by a broad range of new online services including movie downloads and Internet video games.
Emphasis for the new switch will be potential to cut the energy costs of large data centers. Changing the design of a data center, made possible by the need for fewer networking interfaces, could reduce a data center's energy use by 8%, says Cisco.
Industry analysts say the system is likely to have impact on the way data centers are designed, and may dominate a new version of the Ethernet networking standard that Cisco is designing to handle torrents of digital data.The analysts added that the Nexus product line, which begins at $75,000 and will sell for far more in advanced configurations, is expected to put incresed pressure on competitors Juniper, Force10 and Brocade.
Source:www.nytimes.com/
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps9402/index.html