3Com has announced the H3C S9500E modular switch chassis, an enterprise core switch optimised for enterprise core- and medium-sized data centre networks.
The switch is claimed to deliver up to twice the IPv4 and up to four times the IPv6 performance of other competitive products. It features port density to support, simplify and secure the migration to virtualised core and data centre environments.
Leveraging intelligent resilient framework (IRF) technology, multiple switches can be linked as a single virtual switch, doubling performance and utilisation, increasing capacity and eliminating the need for legacy resiliency protocols and their associated complexity.
Virtual environments must meet the same stringent network, security and compliance requirements as their physical counterparts. With the switch, users can extend the company’s secure network fabric (SNF) to their next-generation enterprise core and data centre networks. Combined with TippingPoint network security offerings, users can achieve greater business continuity by reducing network security risks while decreasing management complexity and infrastructure costs.
Common across the H3C data centre and enterprise LAN switching portfolio, IRF technology is used to create a resilient virtual switch fabric (RVSF) that delivers greater than ‘five nines’ availability, flexible deployment options and good levels of networking performance. IRF and RVSF reduce network complexity, providing complete and transparent network redundancy, enabling users to address rapidly growing virtualised and dispersed application environments with a simplified approach to network virtualisation management.
The platform is available in three chassis models offering 12, eight and five input/output (I/O) modules respectively, the H3C S9512E, the H3C S9508E-V (vertical alignment) and the H3C S9505E. The H3C S9500E offers a maximum switching capacity of 1.4 Tbps and up to 192 10 Gb ports or 576 Gb ports (fibre or copper), with embedded, extensible security and robust network and service virtualisation to help consolidate, secure and simplify network deployments for large data centres and virtual networks.
The H3C S9500E options include the network-embedded H3C SecBlades for VPN Firewall, NetStream monitoring, load balancing and, later this year, a TippingPoint IPS module. The integrated visibility, management and security components of the SNF strategy secure network fabric strategy and enable network administrators to distribute network applications and services throughout the network.
The H3C SecBlades are available for the H3C S9500E and H3C S7500E chassis, and are suitable for integrated high-end firewalls/VPNs requirements for the network core or data centre, where the virtualised firewall capabilities allow for secure network segmentation.