Penguin Computing Releases Arctica 3200xl Open Switches

Penguin Computing, a provider of high performance and enterprise computing solutions, today announced future availability of the new Arctica 3200xl open network switch based on the Broadcom StrataXGS Trident II chipset. Introduction of Arctica 3200xl adds 32-port 40 Gigabit Ethernet capability to the Arctica family. Arctica 3200xl also enables up to 96 servers and storage systems to be connected over 10 Gigabit Ethernet to a single Top-of-Rack switch while supporting 40 Gigabit Ethernet uplinks for aggregation. With existing Arctica 4804i, 4804x and new 3200xl models Penguin has a full suite of open switches for High Performance Computing and Internet Data Center applications. 40 Gigabit Ethernet (40GigE) ports available in Arctica 3200xl alleviate I/O bottlenecks in congested storage servers. Used as Inter-Switch Links (ISLs), 40GigE connections aggregate traffic from multiple 10/40GigE Top-of-Rack switches. Arctica 3200xl also offers new high port count 10 Gigabit Ethernet options to support ultra high density rack form factors, such as Penguin OpenHPC. Multiple Arctica 3200xl and 4804x units can be used to span large non-blocking fabric topologies (Clos networks) to support High Performance Computing clusters. For data center and virtualization workloads, Arctica 3200xl provides wire speed VXLAN functionality to address the management and security concerns in large multi-tenant cloud deployments. “For the bandwidth intensive applications encountered in HPC clusters and Internet Data Centers, the new Arctica 3200xl switch makes 40 Gigabit Top-of-Rack (ToR) architecture economical and practical,” said Charles Wuischpard, CEO Penguin Computing. “All Arctica switches are open and support the Software Defined Networking (SDN) model. Penguin recommends Cumulus Linux which provides rich set of Linux based orchestration and automation tools.” “We are excited to work with our partner Penguin Computing to enable open switch architectures for High Performance Computing and Internet Datacenters,” said Nolan Leake, Co-Founder and CTO, Cumulus Networks. “Penguin Arctica 3200xl running the latest Cumulus Linux stack delivers 10 and 40 Gigabit Ethernet fabric technology that allows cluster interconnects to be provisioned in minutes.” Penguin Computing is focused on testing, integrating and supporting Linux in the HPC clusters and Internet datacenters. The Arctica line of switches is offered in Penguin’s rack level solutions and also as standalone products. The new Arctica 3200xl switch will be available for sampling in the fourth calendar quarter of 2013 and shipping in first calendar quarter 2014.