Table of Contents
Advertisement
Rev A04
1
Product Overview
1.1
The Vantage 8500 Switch
The Vantage 8500 switch is a completely modular, high-performance, high density, non-blocking
Layer-2 core switch, optimized for enterprise data center and cloud computing environments. The
Vantage 8500 switch is one of the most power-efficient and lowest latency Ethernet switches avail-
able, enabling new levels of efficiency, scalability, and real-time application performance, while at
the same time consolidating multiple or redundant network tiers and helping reduce infrastructure
expenses. The Vantage 8500 switch features an impressive 11.52 Tb/s non-blocking backplane,
allowing applications to perform at maximum bandwidth and efficiency.
The Vantage 8500 uses Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE) technology to provide InfiniBand-
like capabilities, such as a lossless switching fabric, and supports Fibre Channel over Ethernet
(FCoE) traffic, Ethernet multi-pathing, I/O virtualization, fabric-wide congestion management and
QoS. The switch is interoperable with standards-based switches, 10 GbE network adapter cards,
and third-party management and virtualization solutions enabling a best-of-breed, cost-effective
data center network.
In contrast to traditional Ethernet infrastructure configurations, the Vantage 8500 switch enables
the creation of a scale-out switch fabric, which is considerably easier to maintain and manage, as
shown in the following figure.
Figure 1: Vantage 8500 Switches in a Scale-Out Ethernet Configuration
The Mellanox switch operating system (VT-OS) comprises Layer-2 protocol
stack and advanced chassis management capabilities that automate regular
administrative tasks, via a user-friendly CLI, GUI, and SNMP-based interface.
For more information about the switch management and fabric management
options, please refer to the Mellanox Vantage™ 8500 Software User Manual
and to the Mellanox Unified Fabric Manager™ (UFM™) User Manual.
14
Mellanox Technologies
Product Overview
Advertisement
Table of Contents
