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Big Switch Releases Big Cloud Fabric-the First Bare Metal SDN Switching Fabric for Data Centers
[July 22, 2014]

Big Switch Releases Big Cloud Fabric-the First Bare Metal SDN Switching Fabric for Data Centers


(Marketwire (Canada) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) SANTA CLARA, CA--(Marketwired - July 22, 2014) - Big Switch Networks today introduces its flagship product, Big Cloud Fabric, taking another step in the company's commitment to bring hyperscale networking technologies to a broader audience. The product is available to order today and will ship later this quarter.



In addition to the introduction of Big Cloud Fabric, the company is releasing Big Tap 4.0 and expanding its partner ecosystem. The announcement comes at a time when the company is seeing adoption accelerate -- the company now has it first million dollar customer, and its largest production deployment now spans 16 data centers. Current customers span three continents and numerous verticals, including financial services, high tech, service provider, retail, government, and higher education.

Big Cloud Fabric: Building on the success of the Big Tap monitoring fabric, Big Cloud Fabric is the next logical step for network architects embracing hyperscale design. Big Cloud Fabric is the industry's first and only data center switching fabric that combines the operational advantages of SDN software with the economics of bare metal switch hardware. The product is designed for new pods in existing data centers and has been in beta with ten customers to date as a part of private cloud, big data, and VDI projects.


A data center pod built with the Big Cloud Fabric features i) a modern application/tenant centric configuration, ii) a massive reduction in management consoles required for day-to-day management, iii) integrated workflows for networking/security/audit teams (starting with OpenStack), and iv) industry-leading CapEx savings.

Like Big Tap, Big Cloud Fabric leverages the company's Switch Light Operating System on physical leaf and spine bare metal switch hardware and supports the latest Trident II silicon from Broadcom. It is designed for 10G and 40G scale and resiliency, featuring headless mode high availability, zero-touch provisioning, L2/3 forwarding options, application-centric policy and service chaining. Management is available via OpenStack, Cloudstack, REST, CLI, or GUI. Details available here.

Big Cloud Fabric is available in two editions: P-Clos Edition: a physical leaf and spine fabric targeting a broad range of data center environments, including KVM/OVS, ESX, Hyper-V, Bare Metal, or a mix.

Unified P+V Clos Edition: a physical + virtual fabric where leaf, spine and vSwitches are controlled by the Big Cloud Fabric Controller.

Introduction of Big Tap 4.0: The company is also releasing Big Tap 4.0 this quarter, the next major release of this award-winning platform. Release 4.0 expands the addressable market with a new use case -- tapping distributed, remote data centers -- to complement recent wins in scale-out, "tap every rack" designs. The release has an increasingly rich filtering feature set including deeper packet matching, applicable for tunneled packets such as those found in mobile protocols and VXLAN. It also provides additional compatible hardware choices, including Dell open networking hardware as well as Accton/Edge-Core based Trident II switches. Big Tap 4.0 is available to order today. Details available here.

Partner Momentum: Big Switch's growing product portfolio and market momentum has attracted an ecosystem of partners spanning L4-L7 services, orchestration, big data, VDI, network/security monitoring, and application performance management. The company is announcing or expanding deeper partnerships with partners including A10 Networks, Accton Technology, Blue Coat, BlueData, Broadcom, Canonical, Check Point, Citrix, Dell, Edge-Core, FireEye, Fortinet, Garland Technology, Hillstone Networks, Hortonworks, Infoblox, In-Q-Tel, iwNetworks, Microsoft, Mirantis, Nexenta, Quanta Computer, Red Hat, Riverbed, and Telchemy. Details available here.

Supporting Quotes: "The innovators in data center networking over the last five years have primarily been the hyperscale players such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Amazon," said Douglas Murray, CEO, Big Switch Networks. "Our mission is to bring this hyperscale design to data centers worldwide, enabling companies to achieve improved operational efficiency and delivering on the original promise of SDN. Hyperscale networking focuses on simplicity and cost savings, and isn't simply a vision for the future -- it is available today." "Networking has seen more architectural innovation in the last few years than in the past two decades as companies look to create more agile, flexible networks with SDN," said Brian Marshall, analyst, ISI Group. "However, making the leap to new hyperscale SDN solutions can be challenging for organizations with legacy infrastructure. Big Tap offers a simple, high-value entry point for customers to warm up to SDN and get comfortable. Now Big Cloud Fabric at the core can help mitigate risk for customers and enable a seamless transition to SDN." "Big Switch's enterprise-hardened SDN technology creates simplicity in the deployment and management of networks and provides flexibility to scale up to satisfy large and diverse workloads," said Greg Shipley, Vice President of IQT's Infrastructure and Security Practice. "We believe bare-metal infrastructure represents an opportunity for our government customers to run demanding data center networks at scale." "Our Open Networking initiative is a prime example of delivering to our customers innovative technology, services, and choice to embrace Software Defined Networking -- pairing Big Tap Monitoring Fabric software into a solution that brings Dell Open Networking platforms to market -- to maximize existing and future network investments," said Adnan Bhutta, Director Global Strategy, Open Networking at Dell.

To Learn More: Please check out videos, tutorials, and whitepapers linked from our blog post about the launch at: http://www.bigswitch.com/big-july.

Tweet this: @BigSwitch releases Big Cloud Fabric-the first bare metal SDN switching fabric for data centers www.bigswitch.com/big-july About Big Switch Networks: Big Switch Networks is the market leader in bringing hyperscale data center networking technologies to a broader audience. The company is taking three key hyperscale technologies -- OEM/ODM bare metal and open Ethernet switch hardware, sophisticated SDN control software, and core-and-pod data center designs -- and leveraging them in fit-for-purpose products designed for use in enterprises, cloud providers, and service providers. The company's Big Tap Monitoring Fabric is an entry level solution to monitor existing networks, and the flagship Big Cloud Fabric is the industry's most advanced bare metal switching fabric intended for new data center pods such as private cloud, big data, and VDI. For additional information, email [email protected], follow @bigswitch, or visit www.bigswitch.com.

Big Switch Networks, Big Cloud Fabric, Big Tap, Switch Light OS, and Switch Light vSwitch are trademarks or registered trademarks of Big Switch Networks, Inc. All other trademarks, service marks, registered marks, or registered service marks are the property of their respective owners.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: Contact Mike Barash Knock Twice for Big Switch Networks [email protected] (650) 520-0120 Source: Big Switch Networks

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