IBM BNT RackSwitch G8124
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IBM BNT RackSwitch G8124
IBM System x at-a-glance guide
The IBM BNT RackSwitch G8124 delivers exceptional performance that is both lossless and low latency.
In addition, the G8124 delivers excellent cost savings as you consider acquisition costs, energy costs,
plus its feature-rich design with when it comes to virtualization, CEE/FCoE, high availability, and its
enterprise class Layer 2 and Layer 3 functionality.
With support for 1G or 10G, this switch is designed for those clients that are leveraging 10G Ethernet
today or have plans to in the future. This is the first Top of Rack 10Gb switch for IBM System x designed
to support IBM Virtual Fabric, which helps clients significantly reduce cost and complexity when it comes
to the I/O requirements of most virtualization deployments today. Virtual Fabric can help clients reduce
the number of multiple I/O adapters down to a single dual-port 10G adapter, in addition to reducing the
number of cables and upstream switch ports required. Virtual Fabric allows clients to carve up a dual-port
10G adapter into eight virtual NICs (vNICs) and create dedicated virtual pipes between the adapter and
the switch for optimal performance, plus higher availability and better security. This functionality provides
the ability to dynamically allocate bandwidth per vNIC in increments of 100 Mb, while being able to adjust
over time without downtime. Figure 1 shows the IBM BNT RackSwitch G8124.
Figure 1. IBM BNT RackSwitch G8124
Did you know
Did you know that:
The G8124 switch is designed to support a number of separate types of configurations from a server
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or downstream switches: 1 Gb, 10 Gb, virtual NIC, Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE/FCoE), and
iSCSI. This single switch can handle all these workloads and can connect to an upstream 1 Gb or 10
Gb infrastructure, or both.
The G8124 is designed to support data center bridging (DCB), which is the IEEE’s group of protocols
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that provide Lossless Ethernet and allows for clients to reduce the costs of implementing FCoE by
leveraging port aggregation before connecting to more costly upstream gateway devices.
IBM Virtual Fabric helps clients reduce costs and complexity in environments where they need four or
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more NICs per server. A perfect example is virtualization, where clients often need as many as eight
NICs per server.
IBM is a leader in helping clients reduce the complexity of managing VM’s and VM migration with their
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VMready product, which makes the network VM aware.
