Force10 Networks Joins the Green Grid

Force10 Networks, the pioneer in building and securing reliable networks, today announced it has joined The Green Grid, a non-profit consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems. As part of the alliance, Force10 will share best practices for leveraging high system-level density to increase data center energy efficiency. "Power consumption is one of the most pressing concerns in the data center, and joining the consortium will allow us to work with the industry to develop the energy efficient solutions that are necessary for supporting evolving business requirements," said Stephen Garrison, vice president of marketing at Force10 Networks. "Force10 is committed to working with the IT industry to promote innovative ways to reduce power consumption and lower the total cost of ownership for computing environments." Data center networks are becoming increasingly complex in response to a growing number of applications that require more computing, storage and network capacity. With this complexity comes a demand for more power, forcing businesses to bring more power to the data center or move to facilities that can accommodate the increasing demand. The emergence of low cost, dense servers is further increasing power demand. A recent Ziff-Davis survey found that 71 percent of IT decision makers are dealing with or tracking issues related to power consumption and cooling. The Force10 TeraScale E-Series family of switch/routers supports 1,260 Gigabit and 224 Ten Gigabit Ethernet ports in a single chassis, allowing IT managers to connect more servers and devices to reduce network complexity. Additionally, the TeraScale E-Series supports robust Layer 2 switching and Layer 3 routing functions that further reduce the number of elements in the network by collapsing multiple layers into one. In the aggregate, the high density and robust functionality of the TeraScale E-Series serve to reduce power consumption by reducing the number of switches and routers required in the network. In a network with 270 line-rate nodes, for example, the TeraScale E-Series requires roughly 80 percent less power and cooling than a typical low density switch. The consortium is comprised of companies developing products and technologies aimed at the data center market as well as IT professionals tasked with data center operations. The group is chartered to develop standards, measurement tools and processes to increase the efficiency of the data center solutions. For additional information on managing data center power and cooling, please visit its Web site.