Enterprise & Data Center Networking

Held July 18, 2007

Session 1: Market and Technology Trends

Bob Wheeler, senior analyst at The Linley Group, will present an overview of market, technology, equipment-design, and silicon trends for designers of enterprise and data-center networking equipment.

Session 2: Advanced Processors for Switching Applications

This session, moderated by Bob Wheeler, features processors that integrate hardware acceleration for L4-7 processing and will describe specific applications for these chips.

OCTEON Architecture Advantages for Enterprise and Data-Center Applications
     Kin-Yip Liu, Director of Applications Engineering, Cavium Networks

In this presentation, Cavium will describe how its OCTEON architecture addresses the trends and requirements of Enterprise and Data Center applications through optimized packet processing and advanced L4-L7 hardware acceleration. Example platforms and applications include content-aware switches, application-aware gateways, triple-play gateways, WLAN aggregation devices, storage networking equipment, configurable service blades, and intelligent NICs. Specific platform designs addressing a scalable range of price and performance points will be described.

Application-Aware Networking using PowerQUICC Processors
      Mike Hui, IP Services Solution Architect, Freescale

Today’s sophisticated applications tax network-infrastructure equipment more than ever. Examples of challenging applications include routing packets based on content, enforcing policy based on application, and examining message exchanges statefully based on session. Meeting these demands at high data rates requires advancements in hardware and silicon. This presentation explores how pattern-matching technology, integrated within select PowerQUICC processors, can help accelerate the tasks associated with application-aware networking.

See Freescale's live demo of "L7-Filter Using Freescale's Integrated Pattern Matching Engine" during the exhibit.

Session 3: New Interconnect Technologies for The Data Center

This session, moderated by Jag Bolaria, senior analyst at The Linley Group, will examine new high-speed interconnect technologies and their application in data-center networks and equipment.

10GBASE-KR in The Data Center
      Brad Booth, Senior Principal Engineer, AMCC

The majority of 10Gbps backplanes today use a multi-lane interconnect, either proprietary or XAUI-based. The recently completed 10GBASE-KR standard defines a 10Gbps serial PHY for Ethernet backplanes. Primary applications for this new standard include blade servers and high performance computing (HPC) environments as well as modular 10GbE telecom and datacom platforms. In this talk, AMCC will review the standard, its primary applications, and provide details of its new QT2055 10GBASE-KR PHY.

See a live demo of AMCC's backplane Ethernet 10GBASE-KR ecosystem at the exhibit. For a description, see the Conferences/Events section on AMCC's web site.

Data-Center Interconnects using CMOS Photonics
      Alex Dickinson, President and CEO, Luxtera

The acceleration of video as a key application, combined with the accelerating compute capacity of multi-core processors, is driving the need for high bandwidth, low latency, low power, and low cost interconnects within the data center. CMOS Photonics is a technology that seamlessly merges optics and electronics within production silicon chips, enabling a completely new generation of optical fiber interconnect for the datacenter. In this talk we will introduce both the technology and a range of data-center interconnect products.

Session 4: Data-Center Switch Design

This session, moderated by Jag Bolaria, focuses on the design of 10G Ethernet switching equipment using merchant chips.

10GbE Switch Chips for Data-Center Ethernet
      Asif Hazarika, Senior Manager, Fujitsu Microelectronics America

Server consolidation and virtualization are driving demand for 10GbE in the data center. To augment the capabilities of Ethernet in these applications, the IEEE is developing new features like congestion notification and priority pause. In this talk, Fujitsu will discuss data-center Ethernet requirements and protocols and how its 10GbE switch chips address these requirements.

Requirements for Data-Center Switches
      Ori Aruj, General Manager North America, Dune Networks

The data-center switching market has experienced rapid growth, which has established it as a distinct segment. This growth will continue, riding the technical evolution and cost reduction of 10GbE silicon and optics solutions. Data-center switches have a unique set of technical and economic requirements. In this talk, Dune will review these requirements and evaluate potential solutions, highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of each approach.

Session 5: Advances in Server Connectivity

This session, moderated by Bob Wheeler, discusses competing technologies for server connectivity at 10Gbps and beyond.

The Benefits of InfiniBand in Data-Center Networking
      Michael Kagan, VP of Architecture, Mellanox Technologies

The increasing usage of powerful multi-core server and storage systems, in addition to virtualization software that increases application efficiency and flexibility, have placed new demands on the performance and capabilities of data-center networks. Industry-standard InfiniBand, deployed today in data centers, provides the optimal interconnect technology for tightly-coupled, flexible, agile and scalable server and storage infrastructure. In this session, Mellanox will discuss key features inherent to InfiniBand—including IO virtualization, QoS on transport and network layers, and service delivery management—and their benefits to data-center networking.

The 10GBASE-T Server NIC: Architecture, Deployment, and Performance
      Steve Pope, CTO, Solarflare Communications

10GBASE-T technology arrived with a bang early in 2007 with a rash of product announcements from multiple 10G Ethernet server NIC vendors. This talk will describe the growing 10GBASE-T ecosystem with particular attention to the architecture, performance, and ease of use of the Solarflare SFE4001 10GBASE-T NIC when deployed in commodity Linux and Windows servers.

Session 6: The Future of Data-Center Networks

This panel, moderated by Bob Wheeler, will discuss the technologies and silicon driving the future of data-center networks as well as the challenges facing equipment designers.

Moderator: Bob Wheeler, The Linley Group
Panelists:   Michael Kagan, Mellanox Technologies; Steve Pope, Solarflare Communications; Alex Dickinson, Luxtera; Gilles Garcia, AMCC; and Ori Aruj, Dune Networks.

Reception with Exhibits and Raffle.