MANUFACTURING

Dramatic new advances in networking density and reliability are rapidly giving rise to a new economic paradigm in the data center, Force10 Networks CEO Marc Randall said today. Speaking at the Thomas Weisel Partners Tech2005 Conference in San Francisco, Randall outlined how cluster computing enables enterprises to leverage inexpensive Ethernet and highly resilient switching to significantly lower computing costs and achieve new economies of scale in their networks. "At the core of the new cluster economy is a move in the enterprise to leverage familiar Ethernet technology in new computing architectures that offer significant cost savings and competitive advantages," said Randall at the annual technology conference that addresses the current trends affecting the communications industry. "While technological barriers have previously hampered the widespread adoption of cluster computing in the enterprise, new developments in system-level density and reliability have come together to create a network economy based on the adoption of clusters." Combining greater system-level density with built-in resiliency at the system-level provides not only the technological foundation for new cluster computing architectures but also delivers lower total cost of ownership. With greater density, single switches process more data, enabling network operators to deploy fewer systems. Fewer switches reduce not only capital expenditures but also operational costs such as power, cooling, maintenance, engineering support and cabling. "The rise of the cluster economy is being driven chiefly by the myriad cost-saving benefits cluster computing provides," Randall continued. "By lowering operational and capital expenditures, time to market and customer response times, cluster computing promises to fundamentally alter the way enterprises use their networks." According to a study by the Economic Strategy Institute, enterprises typically use only 15-20 percent of available processing capacity. However, enterprises can increase processing power to as much as 85-90 percent of capacity through the adoption of cluster computing. According to the report, enterprises that took advantage of additional processing capacity reduced capital and operational expenditures while increasing customer response times. A financial firm studied in the report saved 40 percent on hardware costs and 14 percent on operational costs in six months. Another financial firm reduced processing time on investor inquiries from 4 minutes to 15 seconds. Force10 recently introduced its TeraScale E-Series of switch/routers. Designed to provide the high performance technology that is typical in research environments to the enterprise, the TeraScale E-Series combines industry-leading density with unmatched resiliency.