Now Sampling to Customers, New StrataXGS® Tomahawk™ Series Delivers 3.2 Tbps Bandwidth with Comprehensive SDN Control and Visibility Features
IRVINE, Calif., Sept. 24, 2014 — (PRNewswire) —News Highlights:
- First to deliver 32 ports of 100GE, 64 ports of 40GE/50GE or 128 ports of 25GE on a single chip
- Significantly improves efficiency of cloud-scale networks using high-density 25/50GE data center link protocols1
- In-field configurable flow processing and instrumentation engines enrich network control and visibility
- Leverages broad ecosystem of network software, hardware, OEM, operator and application partners
Broadcom Corporation (NASDAQ: BRCM), a global innovation leader in semiconductor solutions for wired and wireless communications, today announced the immediate availability of a new line of switches optimized for cloud-scale data centers. Building on its widely deployed StrataXGS® Trident and StrataDNX™ products, the new StrataXGS® Tomahawk™ Switch Series is the industry's highest performance Ethernet switch, delivering 3.2 Terabits per second (Tbps) switching capacity, unparalleled port density and SDN-optimized engines in a single chip. For more news, visit Broadcom's Newsroom.
With more than 7 Billion integrated transistors, the StrataXGS Tomahawk Series enables the transformation of next-generation cloud fabrics to all-25Gbps per-lane interconnect, increasing link performance by 2.5X2. With dense 100GE connectivity and authoritative support for new 25GE and 50GE protocol standards, the StrataXGS Tomahawk Series significantly bolsters the bandwidth capacity, scalability, and cost efficiency of today's mega data centers and high performance computing (HPC) environments.
"Our StrataXGS Tomahawk Series will usher in the next wave of data centers running 25G and 100G Ethernet, while delivering the network visibility required to operate large-scale cloud computing, storage and HPC fabrics," said Rajiv Ramaswami, Broadcom Executive Vice President, Infrastructure & Networking Group. "This is the culmination of a multi-year cooperative effort with our partners and customers to prepare for this transition. We are pleased to see significant industry investment in the Tomahawk 32x100GE form factor as well as the 25G/50G Ethernet specification, which Broadcom defined and co-founded as an industry standard."
Transforming Leaf-Spine Networks to 25/100GE for Maximum Efficiency and Scale-Out
By deploying StrataXGS Tomahawk based switches, data center networks currently running 10GE at the top-of-rack (leaf) level and 40GE at the end-of-row (spine) level can upgrade to 25GE and 100GE interconnect, respectively, to accommodate growth in distributed server/storage workloads without increasing network equipment footprint or cabling complexity. A three-tier data center fabric of StrataXGS Tomahawk switches, using standard, compact, CAPEX-efficient form factors, can deliver over 15X higher network bandwidth capacity3.
In lieu of upgrading server-to-switch connections to 40GE, a StrataXGS Tomahawk based network driving 25GE to the server reduces cabling elements within the rack by as much as 75 percent, while quadrupling the number of server and storage nodes that can be interconnected in a leaf-spine topology4. This dual-pronged improvement in bandwidth efficiency and port density compared to existing 40GE solutions gives modern data centers unprecedented ability to scale out their networks and achieve significant return on investment.
Comprehensive Visibility and Control for Software-Defined Data Centers
Optimized for Software Defined Network (SDN) application ecosystems, Broadcom's new BroadView™ instrumentation feature set enables data center operators to have full visibility of network and switch-level analytics. With extensive application flow and debug statistics, link health and utilization monitors, streaming network congestion detection and packet tracing capabilities, the StrataXGS Tomahawk Series provides operators the telemetry to troubleshoot large-scale networks, apply controls for optimal performance, respond to potential problems before they happen and drive down OPEX.
Featuring new FleXGS™ packet processing engines, the StrataXGS Tomahawk Series enables operators to adapt to changing workloads and control their networks, with an extensive suite of user configurable functions for flow processing, security, network virtualization, measurement/monitoring, congestion management and traffic engineering. Among other benefits, FleXGS engines provide in-field configurable forwarding and classification database profiles, more than 12X greater application policy scale compared to previous generation switches, increased flexibility of packet lookups and key generation, and rich load balancing and traffic redirection controls. All these configurable capabilities are accessible to the network control plane via industry-proven software APIs and come without sacrificing network data plane throughput or latency.
StrataXGS Tomahawk Key Features
- 3.2 Tbps multilayer Ethernet switching
- Integrated low-power 25Ghz SERDES
- Authoritative support for 25G and 50G Ethernet Consortium specification
- Configurable pipeline latency enabling sub 400ns port-to-port operation
- Supports high performance storage/RDMA protocols including RoCE and RoCEv2
- BroadView instrumentation: provides switch- and network-level telemetry
- High-density FleXGS flow processing for configurable forwarding/match/action capabilities
- OpenFlow 1.3+ support using Broadcom OF-DPA™
- Comprehensive overlay and tunneling support including VXLAN, NVGRE, MPLS, SPB
- Flexible policy enforcement for existing and new virtualization protocols
- Enhanced Smart-Hash™ load balancing modes for leaf-spine congestion avoidance
- Integrated Smart-Buffer™ technology with 5X greater performance versus static buffering
- Single-chip and multi-chip HiGig™ solutions for top-of-rack and scalable chassis applications
Availability
The Broadcom StrataXGS BCM56960 Tomahawk Switch Series is now sampling.
Industry Quotes
Network Operators and Virtualization Partners:
(Note: Broadcom and Microsoft have collaborated on data center technology standards development, including those for storage networking protocols (RoCEv2) and network virtualization (NVGRE). Broadcom and Microsoft are co-founders of the recently formed 25G Ethernet Consortium.)
Albert Greenberg, Distinguished Engineer and Development Manager, Azure Networking, Microsoft Corporation
"Broadcom is a valued partner in our efforts to advance software defined networking, RDMA in the data center and 25/50G Ethernet technology."
Zhang Cheng, Deputy Director of Engineering, Baidu
"Building out the next generation of cloud services in China requires both the cost-effective expansion of server/ storage networking bandwidth and radix beyond current 10G Ethernet, as well as the ability to deploy highly instrumented and operationally agile networks. Broadcom's new StrataXGS Tomahawk series delivers industry-leading technology in both these dimensions, and like its predecessor switch families, provides Baidu a foundation for innovating in the architecture and orchestration of our data center networks."
Dr. Justin Erenkrantz, Head of Compute Architecture, Bloomberg LP
"At Bloomberg, we feel that 25G based technology opens up a more natural growth model for both access and transport interconnects. The realization of simpler cabling will have a significant operational impact as will the consumption of silicon capacity in flexible denominations - including 25G, 50G and 100G. Broadcom's leadership with the 25 Gigabit Ethernet Consortium demonstrates their commitment to helping operators build toward this future."
Tree Qiu, Chief Network Architect, Tencent Corporation
"Broadcom's leadership product portfolio in data center switching has helped enable Tencent's deployment of high-performance leaf-spine network topologies. We are excited to see groundbreaking new technologies in the StrataXGS Tomahawk Series, including all-25Gbps interfaces and high 100GE port count, network visibility engines, intelligent traffic engineering and dense flow processing, which will help drive new heights in performance, software control, and economies of scale for cloud networks."
Hatem Naguib, Vice-President, Networking and Security, VMWare
"With the StrataXGS Tomahawk Series, Broadcom is delivering the engine for economical, high-performance and scalable fabrics that can serve as the underlay foundation for the software-defined data center. With this announcement, we believe support for network virtualization is now becoming a minimum requirement for any physical network in the new software-defined world, whether in mainstream enterprises, web-scale organizations or service providers. Customers will be able to deploy the VMware NSX network virtualization platform to operate with networking solutions powered by the StrataXGS Tomahawk Series to build fast, agile, secure virtual networks."
Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs):
Parviz Ghalambor, Senior Vice President of Engineering, Brocade
"As part of Brocade's commitment to power the software-defined data centers of tomorrow, we are excited to be working with Broadcom to develop StrataXGS Tomahawk based Ethernet fabrics for our customers. By enabling impressive single-chip port density at leading-edge 25GE and 100GE throughputs and delivering critical features for multi-tenancy, storage convergence, network security and monitoring, Broadcom helps augment the performance and application reach of our data center portfolio, including the widely-deployed MLX, VDX, and ICX platforms."
