Fujitsu Rolls Out Aggregated 1GbE/10GbE Switches

Fujitsu Computer Products of America, already offering a line of 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches, is moving downstream.

Fujitsu July 28 rolled out 24- and 48-port 1Gb/10GbE switches designed to give businesses a migration path from 1GbE to 10GbE, and to enable them to integrate their 1GbE traffic into 10GbE networks.

Fujitsu has been offering 10GbE switches since 2005, according to Jim Preasmyer, director of sales and business development for Fujitsu’s Advanced Technology Group.

However, most customers still run 1GbE networks, and are looking to integrate those networks with their 10GbE environments, Preasmyer said.

The new switches—the 24-port XG0224 and 48-port XG0448—enable Fujitsu to offer that capability to those customers.

“It allows us to move down to the next level, where the majority [of networks] are at 1G,” Preasmyer said in an interview. “They’re migrating to 10GbE, but they’re not there yet.”

Analyst firms such as the Dell’Oro Group and Infonetics have been saying that demand for 10GbE technologies is expected to continue growing despite the global recession, fueled by such trends as increased video traffic and Web 2.0 workloads, greater use of virtualization, and increased density in data centers—thanks to such technologies as 1U, 2U and blade servers, and multicore processors—and continued data center consolidation.

Some businesses already are turning their attention to 40GbE, and vendors Alcatel-Lucent and Juniper Networks have introduced 100GbE interface cards.

Still, most businesses are still running 1GbE networks, and are looking to integrate them into 10GbE environments and for migration paths to 10GbE, Preasmyer said.

“It is a … path, but I think what some people want [now] is a product to handle both,” he said.

The XG0224 and XG0448 switches feature auto-sensing 10/100/1000 Base-T with four ports for SFP optics and open slots for one- or two dual-port 10GbE uplink cards. In addition, the low-power 1U (1.75-inch) form factor enables easy integration into a business’s existing networks.