Today, NEC announced the ProgrammableFlow PF5820 10/40GbE OpenFlow switch, an extension of its Software Defined Network (SDN) architecture. The PF5820 joins the ProgrammableFlow controller, the PF5240 1/10GbE switch, and a visualization monitor which portrays end-to-end network flows at-a-glance. ProgrammableFlow has been shipping since May and has been in production for a full year in our early adopters’ data center networks, including Nippon Express and Genesis Hosting Solutions.
ProgrammableFlow has grabbed the attention of industry watchers, and a demo of our award-winning technology took the recent Network Field Day 2 two-day event by storm. Listen in as Network Engineers Greg Ferro, Ivan Peopnjak, Derick Winkworthand Ethan Bankstalk about “Why OpenFlow has Mind-Melting Potential”on their 76th podcast broadcast on November 20, archived at PacketPushers.net.
That said, we are adding to the leadership position NEC has staked out with this new core OpenFlow switch. This energy-efficient hardware provides high throughput, with low latency, delivering 1.28 Terabits of switching performance with a compact footprint. The PF5820 is designed for building high performance, secure, and programmable networks.
One Software Defined Network using the PF5820 is called The Open Science, Scholarship and Services Exchange (OS3E). Internet2and Indiana University, two of the three partners behind the OS3E (the third partner is Stanford University’s Clean Slate Program) conducted a webinar last week to educate Internet2 members and other interested institutions and enterprises on how they can leverage OS3E to conduct network innovation and support global scientific research. You can check out their use cases and support for the PF5820 by downloading the webinar presentation here.
A bit more information on the new switch: the PF5820 provides 48 10GbE SFP+ ports plus 4 QSFP+ ports that operate at 40GbE or as 16 additional 10GbE ports providing a total of 64 10GbE ports in one switch. Built for reliability, the PF5820 design includes optional front-to-back or back-to-front airflow, redundant, hot-swappable AC power supplies, The PF5240 supports the OpenFlow 1.0 specification today and we currently plan to support future versions as they are approved and deemed suitable for widespread deployment.
Learn more about the PF5820 or ProgrammableFlow by accessing our website at www.necam/pflow, or call the NEC sales team at 866-632-3226 to book an appointment with a NEC account representative today. We look forward to talking to you directly about ProgrammableFlow and OpenFlow – and why last week even The New York Times was talking about the promise of this new technology.