Force10 Networks CEO Marc Randall Highlights Impact of Clustering

Falling computing costs and the rise of 10 Gigabit Ethernet are fundamentally changing the way businesses do business, said Force10 President and CEO Marc Randall today at the 35th Annual Bank of America Investment Conference in San Francisco. The combination of powerful, low cost servers and high performance Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet enables a fundamental change in data center architecture which, for the first time, provides enterprises with the supercomputer power to solve business problems. "Of the many trends taking place today that are altering the way businesses successfully compete, the declining cost of computing power and the introduction and early proliferation of 10 Gigabit Ethernet are among the most important," said Randall at the investment conference, which brings 310 leading public and private companies together with investors. "It is these two trends that enable businesses to approach problems, analyze data and provide solutions to their customers more quickly and in a more comprehensive way than ever before." Clustering architectures, which pool disparate computing resources into a single, virtual resource, were pioneered in research organizations several years ago, and are now beginning to move into the enterprise at large. According to the most recent Top500.org list, published in June 2005, 181 of the world's fastest supercomputers are in commercial industries, up 46 percent from 2004. "Connecting the disparate resources that are at the heart of clustering architectures is a congestion free network that plays an active role in providing businesses with the information and answers they need," continued Randall. "With the typical business processing an ever increasing amount of traffic, it is 10 Gigabit Ethernet and high performance switches and routers that truly enable a predictable, congestion free network." As the lynchpin of this congestion free network, high capacity systems provide the density, resiliency and scalability required to anchor a high performance infrastructure. Without laying a scalable foundation, the benefits of the clustering architecture are lost to high operational costs, management headaches that accompany complex networks and the capital costs of upgrading the network earlier than anticipated. The Force10 TeraScale E-Series leads the industry in density and resiliency. Supporting 1,260 Gigabit and 56 line-rate 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports in a single system, the TeraScale E-Series provides the long-term scalability that enables seamless and cost-effective network expansion without disruption.