25 is the New 10

I am continually amazed at the productivity of the Cumulus Networks development team who recently collaborated with the Mellanox development team to do some amazing things in this new Cumulus Linux 3.1 release. Besides innovating on a number of important new software features, they added support for five new switches from Mellanox, including the first native 25 Gigabit Open Ethernet switch as well as the highest capacity 10/100GbE switch on the market.

The Mellanox SN2410 is the industry’s first generally available switch with native 25 Gigabit Ethernet (25GbE) ports. Working for *the* provider of 99% of all 25GbE NICs sold worldwide, I can say with confidence that, until now, all 25GbE servers have been connected to 100GbE switch ports via breakout cables. The SN2410 changes all that by providing 48 SFP28 ports that can natively operate in 1G, 10G, or 25G modes, which is great for cutting-edge deployments while providing backward compatibility for legacy devices. Just like 10GbE SFP+ ports, the 25GbE SP28 ports can utilize inexpensive passive copper direct-attach cables.

Who needs 25 Gigabit Ethernet?

Without my naming names, you can safely assume that the hyperscalers and other early consumers of 10GbE are now moving to 25GbE Continue reading