INTERCONNECTS

Force10 Networks announced that its TeraScale E-Series provided the high 10 Gigabit Ethernet density that enabled the Bandwidth Challenge entries at the SC05 conference to demonstrate the latest applications for harnessing large amounts of bandwidth to advance science and solve problems. The winning entry from CalTech, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, which transferred particle physics data between the host sites and collaborating institutions worldwide, delivered 131 Gigabits per second of sustained IP traffic, setting a new Bandwidth Challenge record. "The Bandwidth Challenge showcases leading edge techniques and applications for utilizing massive amounts of bandwidth to advance science and computing, and the innovative approaches used during the event point the way to how the world will take advantage of vast network resources in the future," said Debbie Montano, director of research and education alliances at Force10 Networks and the chair of the Bandwidth Challenge. "At the core of this ability to transfer large datasets between geographically diverse sites is the TeraScale E-Series with both the density and resiliency to ensure disparate locations can collaborate in real time." The real-time particle event analysis of the winning entry required transfers of Terabyte-scale datasets and leveraged computing resources from multiple sites within the U.S. and worldwide. As the backbone of SCinet, the conference's high performance network, the Force10 Terascale E-Series switched the majority of the traffic from the winning entry. Additionally, Force10 provided many of the 22 line-rate 10 Gigabit Ethernet links into the CalTech and Fermi/SLAC booths, further enabling them to sustain throughput of 131 Gigabits per second. The winning entry also leveraged several other external networks in which the Force10 TeraScale E-Series provides the high performance backbone, including Internet2's Hybrid Optical and Packet Infrastructure (HOPI), UltraScience Net, Teragrid and StarLight, which interconnects most of the world's major high performance research and education networks. Additionally, the TeraScale E-Series was deployed in the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory to support its winning entry. The Force10 TeraScale E-Series provided more than 80 line-rate 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports to build SCinet. Additionally, Force10 provided more than 40 line-rate 10 Gigabit Ethernet links to exhibitors for onsite demonstrations. As the high performance switches at the nexus of the SC05 network, the Force10 TeraScale E-Series processed nearly all traffic for the Bandwidth Challenge. The Force10 TeraScale E-Series support an industry-leading 1,260 Gigabit and 224 Ten Gigabit Ethernet ports per system, providing long-term scalability for seamless network expansion. In addition to leading density, the unique multi-processor architecture of the TeraScale E-Series distributes switching, routing and management functionality between three processors to provide unmatched system level resiliency. With the combination of density and resiliency, the TeraScale E-Series simplifies network topologies and reduces both capital and operating costs.