Fulcrum Microsystems Blog

Fulcrum Microsystems and Teranetics recently announced the availability of the Monte Carlo reference design, a 24-port 10GbE switch with 20 10GBase-T ports and four SFP+ ports.

“As enterprise data centers continue to demand increased bandwidth for multimedia applications, the new Monte Carlo platform addresses those needs by offering an efficient method for aggregating bandwidth over the existing enterprise cabling infrastructure,” said Gary Lee, director of product marketing for Fulcrum Microsystems. “Our collaboration with Teranetics has produced a reference design that is tailored to data centers and enterprise infrastructures where the primary concern is cost-effective bandwidth.”

This new platform gives networking OEMs a market-ready solution that combines high density and performance with the cost advantage of 10GBase-T with standard copper infrastructure.

Read full press release…

Comments welcome: feedback@fulcrummicro.com

The ongoing collaboration between vendors that are positioning data center solutions against Cisco continues with the recent OEM deal between Dell and Juniper, in which Dell will be able to offer Juniper products to its data center customers. This article from Network World also mentions that Dell had reached a similar OEM agreement with Brocade for its SAN and Foundry LAN switches.

The two partnerships are indicative of the overall industry trend where server vendors are working with switch vendors to challenge the Cisco-driven data center paradigm. While the article does not directly confirm that these partnerships are a direct result of Juniper’s Project Stratus initiative, it doesn’t seem like much of a stretch. Server vendors recognize the need for switching architectures to be scalable and feature-rich in order to provide efficient solutions for a cloud-ready data center. This is in contrast to Cisco who proposes a less efficient tiered data center fabric solution.

Read the Network World article…

Comments are welcome: feedback@fulcrummicro.com

Thank you for your vote.  Fulcrum is one of three finalists for the Global Semiconductor Alliance’s award for Most Respected Private Semiconductor Company.  The winner of this prestigious award will be announced at the GSA Awards Dinner Celebration on December 10.  We’re crossing our fingers and hoping to join the distinguished list of winners, which includes NVIDIA, Atheros, and Cavium.

Arista Networks is poised to “shake up the industry” according to LightReading.com which named the company one of its Light Reading Top Picks.  The publication says its picks are companies that it thinks “best indicate where the communications industry is headed in the next 12 months.”

Arista is a prescient choice because there is no lack of noise in the market about data center Ethernet, yet Arista’s products feature a data center heritage – not a LAN heritage – that offers the performance and architecture necessary to offer a compelling alternative to Fibre Channel, InifiniBand and other proprietary networks.