SuperMicro 25GbE Networking for Server and Storage Systems

Super Micro Computer, Inc. is driving the server and storage industry’s transition to 25GbE networking technology with a selection of network interface card (NIC) and top-of-rack (ToR) switch solutions.

As memory, processor and storage performance increase, the demand for expanded network capacity follows naturally. When combined with increased system performance, 25GbE helps enterprises deliver new products and services to market faster. These innovations support smarter machines and bigger data with 2.5 times faster single lane network performance than 10GbE – all at about the same cost. According to industry analysts, 25GbE will triple in volume over the next year or two.

“The time for transitioning from 10GbE to 25GbE networking is now, and the transition is happening very quickly,” said Charles Liang, president and CEO, Supermicro. “Self-driving cars, AI, machine learning, big data and NVMe-over-Fabric are all pushing system performance to the limits and driving the demand for more network bandwidth. With higher performance, better scalability, as well as an easy and clear upgrade path to 100GbE networks, customers are upgrading their networks to 25GbE to increase network throughput – meeting the needs of those applications that are now hungry for even more bandwidth.“

The company offers a wide range of 25GbE NIC solutions that empowe customers to future-proof nearly any firm’s system by equipping it with 25GbE networking technology. All of company’s 25GbE products are dual-speed, so they can operate at either 10GbE or 25GbE. This offers superior investment protection for companies only beginning to evolve from a 10GbE to a 25GbE network infrastructure. Customers can install these systems today and interconnect with their existing infrastructure; when the time to upgrade to 25GbE comes, it is merely a configuration update – no need for a disruptive and costly hardware change.

SSE-C3632S

For those ready to upgrade their ToR switches to 25GbE, the firm offers both its 100GbE switch and its new standalone 25GbE switch. The SSE-C3632S is a 100GbE switch that can be configured with each of its 32 ports split by four to support up to 128 connections at 25GbE. Alternatively, the SSE-F3548S offers a cost competitive option with 48 ports of 25GbE and six uplinks of 100GbE, and the uplinks can be split by four to support as many as 72 connections at 25GbE.

The company also offers a v switch (SBM-25G-100) with the X11 SuperBlade. This switch can be used with either the 8U SuperBlade enclosure (SBE-820J) or the 6U SuperBlade enclosure (SBE-610J) and features twenty 25GbE downlink connections, four QSFP28 ports where each port can be configured as 40GbE or 100GbE uplink connections. Using splitter cables, individual 40GbE ports can be split into four 10GbE ports or the 100GbE port can be split into four 25GbE ports. Like the standard 25GbE ToR switch, the blade switch auto-negotiates and is compatible with 10GbE networking, providing customers a clear path to future 25GbE upgrades to their existing datacenter infrastructure. Customers who are familiar with the Blade networking management interface of MBM-GEM-004 will benefit from using a similar GUI/CLI interface with the new 25GbE switch. Additionally, it supports the latest networking protocols required for today’s datacenter and cloud infrastructure environments. The 25GbE mezzanine card that interfaces with the blade server supports RDMA/RoCE, DPDK, packet pacing, flow steering and Ethernet offloads.

25GbE improves productivity in many diverse applications. For example, Web centric or e-commerce business models always drive demand for more network bandwidth. Similarly, HPC, distributed applications and clustered databases need fast networks as well. And NVMe-over-Fabric drives up the requirement for higher NIC and backbone network speed. Company’s 25GbE solutions can support these applications effectively.

Supermicro’s 25GbE NIC and switch products