Features And Specifications - Lenovo G8000 Product Manual

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Table Of Contents

Table of Contents

Benefits

The RackSwitch G8000 switch is considered particularly suited for these clients:

Clients who want to leverage GbE in their infrastructure (both servers and networking)

Clients who are implementing a virtualized environment and require multiple GbE ports

Clients who require investment protection for 10 GbE ports

Clients who want to reduce TCO and improve performance while maintaining high levels of availability and

security

Clients who want to avoid or minimize oversubscription, which can result in congestion and loss of

performance

Clients who want to implement a converged infrastructure with NAS or iSCSI

The RackSwitch G8000 offers the following benefits:

High performance: The G8000 provides up to 176 Gbps throughput and supports up to four 10 GbE uplink

ports for a very low oversubscription ratio.

Lower power and better cooling: The G8000 uses approximately 120 W, which is a fraction of the power

consumption of most competitive offerings. Unlike side-cooled switches, which can cause heat

recirculation and reliability concerns, the G8000 rear-to-front/front-to-rear cooling design reduces data

center air conditioning costs by matching airflow to the server's configuration in the rack. Variable speed

fans assist in automatically reducing power consumption.

VM-aware network virtualization: VMready software on the switch reduces configuration complexity while

significantly improving security levels in virtualized environments. VMready automatically detects virtual

machine movement from one physical server to another, and instantly reconfigures each VM's network

policies across VLANs to keep the network up and running without interrupting traffic or impacting

performance. VMready works with all leading hypervisors, such as VMware, Citrix Xen, RedHat KVM,

Microsoft Hyper-V, and IBM PowerVM hypervisor.

Layer 3 functionality: The switch includes Layer 3 functionality, which provides security and performance

benefits, plus static and dynamic routing protocols including Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) and Border

Gateway Protocol (BGP) for enterprise customers.

Fault tolerance: These switches learn alternate routes automatically and perform faster convergence in the

unlikely case of a link, switch, or power failure. The switch uses proven technologies such as L2 trunk

failover, advanced VLAN-based failover, VRRP, Hot Links, IGMP V3 snooping, and OSPF.

Seamless interoperability: RackSwitch switches interoperate seamlessly with other vendors' upstream

switches. See the following resources:

Tolly Functionality and Certification: RackSwitch G8000, G8100, and G8124 and Cisco Catalyst

Interoperability Evaluation:

http://www-01.ibm.com/common/ssi/cgi-bin/ssialias?

infotype=SA&subtype=WH&htmlfid=QCL12370USEN#loaded

Stacking: Cluster virtualization, single IP, and stacking of up to six virtual switches allow configuration of

multiple switches as one, saving valuable time, IP addresses, and resources.