BLADE Network Technologies Teams Up With Bell Micro To Address Rising Demand for 10 Gigabit Ethernet Data Centre Networking

Published 13th January 2009

Bell Micro will distribute BLADE’s Virtual, Cooler and Easier RackSwitch Data Centre Switch Products in Europe...

13 January 2009 - CHESSINGTON, UK and SANTA CLARA, California — Bell Microproducts Inc, one of the world’s largest value-added distributors of storage and computing technology, and BLADE Network Technologies, Inc. (BLADE), the trusted leader in data centre networking, announced today an agreement that enables Bell Microproducts to distribute BLADE’s Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) RackSwitch product family throughout Europe.

Bell Micro will sell and co-market BLADE’s “Virtual, Cooler and Easier” RackSwitch product family to address the rapidly emerging market for 10GbE data centre networking. According to Dell’Oro Group, 10 Gigabit Ethernet is expected to reach 15.1 million ports and represent one quarter of all switch market revenue in 2012 (“Five-Year Ethernet Forecast, July 2008”).

"BLADE Network Technologies is a major networking provider for Bell Micro in Europe, especially for adding strength and depth to our growing 10GbE portfolio of products," said Tom Ellis, Business Unit Manager for Storage Solutions at Bell Microproducts. "We see 10 Gigabit Ethernet technology as a key growth area for our business in 2009 as a technology that will remove the bottlenecks we are now seeing in today's data centre and SAN environments.”

Ellis continued, “As more servers are going into blade environments with multi-core CPUs, we are seeing server throughput outstrip the networks they are attached to with the result that Gigabit Ethernet no longer has enough bandwidth. Add to this the move to converged networks using emerging technologies, such as Fibre Channel over Ethernet, and the 10GbE message is clear and very strong. We welcome BLADE’s shared commitment to customer satisfaction and trusted relationships in delivering easy-to-use, high-performance yet low-cost solutions.

BLADE and Bell Micro are partnering to market 10GbE solutions, such as iSCSI SANs equipped with 10GbE for scalable storage performance, single-wire networks that converge SAN, NAS and application servers on a unified 10GbE infrastructure and 10GbE environments tuned for Video on Demand (VoD) and IPTV broadcast environments, as well as 10GbE networking in hosted data centre environments and 10GbE for High Performance Computing (HPC). The two companies will also pursue opportunities for 10GbE networking for server and storage consolidation and green IT.

“We are very pleased that Bell Microproducts shares BLADE’s vision for the data centre network,” said Charles Ferland, Vice President of EMEA Sales at BLADE Network Technologies. “Bell Micro and BLADE will work together to ensure that customers throughout Europe understand the value of 10 Gigabit Ethernet and how best to harness the Virtual, Cooler and Easier capabilities of our RackSwitch family for demanding data centre networks.”

BLADE Reaches 5 Million Ports Milestone at UK Customer

A recent BLADE switch installation at Phorm (AIM: PHRM, PHRX) put BLADE’s total shipments past the 5 million ports milestone. Phorm, a technology company specialising in highly targeted online advertising, has deployed BLADE’s new top-of-rack RackSwitch data centre switch for its innovative Open Internet Exchange (OIX), which enables advertisers to connect precisely with their key customers.

“Phorm delivers advertising technology services that are secure, innovative and high performance,” said Marc Burgess, Phorm’s Senior Vice President of Technology. “We expect the same qualities from our partners. BLADE Network Technologies’ RackSwitch offered us the best price performance and the highest level of technical flexibility for our needs. We look forward to working with BLADE as we progress our strategy globally.”