Plexxi unveils second gen SDN switches

By Jim Duffy, Managing Editor, Network World |

The Cisco Subnet blog is written by Network World managing editor Jim Duffy.

SDN company Plexxi this week launched its second generation of switches which are designed to optimize the physical infrastructure for application behavior.

Plexxi's Switch 2 Series consolidates the network fabric into a single tier for optimized east/west application traffic. It also eliminates the need for multiple switch types typically found in leaf/spine architectures, the company says.

The 2RU switches were developed to address the needs of IT shops in the age of virtualization, hyperconvergence, Big Data and scale-out applications. Traditional network architectures are static and defined by the physical cabling, and lack the agility and scale to accommodate an application-driven infrastructure, Plexxi says.

The Switch 2 Series uses the Plexxi Control management system to dynamically change the fabric topology in real time, forwarding traffic and deliver network capacity. The switches also feature integration with VMware's vSphere to establish policies that orchestrate network behavior, and converge application and network management into a single workflow, Plexxi says.

Plexxi's vision of SDN is aligned with that of Cisco's Application Centric Infrastructure: a policy-based, application-centric fabric necessitating a new switch architecture tailored around application performance across physical and virtual resources.

The Plexxi Switch 2 Series includes the following options:

- The Entry Series (2e), with 48 10G access ports, 6 40G QSFP fabric ports and 240 Gbps of fabric capacity.

- The Performance Series (2s, 2sp), with 72 10G access ports, 4 dedicated Flexx ports and 2 optical fabric interconnect ports delivering 240 Gbps of fabric capacity. Flexx ports are QSFP+ and SFP+ access ports that are directly connected to the Plexxi optical fabric. At speeds of up to 11Gbit/sec, they provide non-Ethernet transport across the Plexxi optical fabric to any other Flexx port in a Plexxi ring. Flexx ports also allow fabric connections to be remapped to access ports to enable long reach or DWDM optics for data center Interconnect.

- The Performance Plus Series (2, 2p), with 48 10G access ports, 28 dedicated Flexx ports and four optical fabric interconnect ports delivering 480 Gbps of multidimensional fabric capacity.

The Plexxi Switch 2 Series is available immediately with pricing starting at $25,000, excluding software and integration licenses. The Switch 2e is available for volume shipment beginning in September.

Plexxi, headquartered in Nashua, NH, has raised $48+ million in venture financing from Lightspeed Venture Partners, Matrix Partners and Northbridge Venture Partners.

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Jim Duffy has been covering technology for over 28 years, 23 at Network World. He covers enterprise networking infrastructure, including routers and switches. He also writes The Cisco Connection blog and can be reached on Twitter @Jim_Duffy and at [email protected].

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