Dell advances Data Center networking fabrics and controls

ROUND ROCK, USA: Dell today announced new networking solutions to help customers deliver faster results, maximize efficiency and modernize and transform operations in scale-out and cloud-based environments.

New products introduced include the Dell Networking Z9500, an energy-efficient, highest density per rack unit, and only pay-as-you-grow 10/40 GbE data center core switch available today.

The new Active Fabric Controller and efforts to accelerate Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) solutions into the sector through industry consortiums and collaboration with industry partners such as Red Hat also can help customers transform and modernize data center infrastructures.

Dell is helping customers upgrade data center network architectures to meet new demands imposed by virtualization, changing traffic patterns, and the nature of today's workload needs including cloud-based and "as-a-service" offerings.

By using standards-based technologies, Dell delivers architectures that help advance legacy systems, prevent vendor lock-in penalties, and future proof infrastructure for an easier transition to software-defined networking (SDN), cloud-based services and emerging technology approaches such as NFV.

"Dell is committed to changing the game in networking. As a follow on to our recent Open Networking announcement, I'm excited about demonstrating more innovation in bringing new and open solutions to our customers regardless of size," said Tom Burns, vice president and general manager, Dell Networking.

"We're extending our leadership in SDN, NFV, and advanced new architectures that maximize customer choice and provide superior economics to the way networking has always been done."

Dell Networking Z9500 Fabric Switch is available in North America in April and worldwide in June.

Dell Active Fabric Controller is available worldwide in the second quarter of 2014.

The co-engineered Dell-Red Hat OpenStack-based NFV and SDN solutions are expected to be available in 2014.