Lenovo Flex System Fabric EN4093R - Switch - L3 - managed - 14 x 10 Gigabit Ethernet + 10 x 10 Gigabit Ethernet SFP+ / 1 Gigabit Ethernet SFP+ - plug-in module
- Increased performance
- Pay as you grow investment protection and lower total cost of ownership
- Cloud ready - Optimized network virtualization with virtual NICs
- Cloud ready - VM-aware networking
- Simplified network infrastructure
- Transparent networking capability
- SDN ready - OpenFlow enabled
- Integrated network management
The Flex System Fabric EN4093R 10Gb Scalable Switch provides unmatched scalability, port flexibility and performance, while also delivering innovations to help address a number of networking concerns today and providing capabilities that will help you prepare for the future. This switch is capable of supporting up to sixty-four 10 Gb Ethernet connections while offering Layer 2/3 switching, in addition to OpenFlow and "easy connect" modes. It is designed to install within the I/O module bays of the Flex System Enterprise Chassis. This switch can help clients migrate to a 10 Gb or 40 Gb Ethernet infrastructure and offers cloud ready virtualization features like Virtual Fabric and VMready in addition to being Software Defined Network (SDN) ready.
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Increased performance
With the growth of virtualization and the evolution of cloud, many of today's applications require low latency and high bandwidth performance. The EN4093R is the embedded 10 GbE switch for a compute node chassis to support sub-microsecond latency and up to 1.28 Tbps, while also delivering full line rate performance, making it ideal for managing dynamic workloads across the network. Furthermore, this switch provides a rich Layer 2 and Layer 3 feature set that is ideal for many of today's data centers, and it offers industry-leading external bandwidth by being the first integrated switch to support 40 GbE external ports.
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Pay as you grow investment protection and lower total cost of ownership
The EN4093R flexible port mapping allows you to buy only the ports that you need, when you need them to lower acquisition and operational costs. The base switch configuration includes 24x 10 GbE port licenses that can be assigned to internal connections and 10 GbE or even 40 GbE (by using four 10 GbE licenses per 40 GbE port) external ports. You then have the flexibility of turning on more 10 GbE internal connections and more 10 GbE or 40 GbE external ports when you need them using Lenovo Features on Demand licensing capabilities that provide "pay as you grow" scalability without the need for additional hardware.
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Cloud ready - optimized network virtualization with virtual NICs
With the majority of IT organizations implementing virtualization, there has been an increased need to reduce the cost and complexity of their environments. Lenovo is helping to address these requirements by removing multiple physical I/O ports. Virtual Fabric provides a way for companies to carve up 10 GbE ports into virtual NICs (vNICs) to meet those requirements with Intel processor-based compute nodes.
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Cloud ready - VM-aware networking
Delivering advanced virtualization awareness helps simplify management and automates VM mobility by making the network VM aware with VMready, which works with all the major hypervisors. For companies using VMware or KVM, Defined Network for Virtual Environment (SDN VE, sold separately) enables network administrators to simplify management by having a consistent virtual and physical networking environment. SDN VE virtual and physical switches use the same configurations, policies, and management tools. Network policies migrate automatically along with virtual machines (VMs) to ensure that security, performance, and access remain intact as VMs move from compute node to compute node.
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Simplified network infrastructure
The EN4093R 10Gb Scalable Switch simplifies deployment and growth because of its innovative scalable architecture. This architecture helps increase return on investment by reducing the qualification cycle, while providing investment protection for additional I/O bandwidth requirements in the future. The extreme flexibility of the switch comes from the ability to turn on additional ports as required, both down to the compute node and for upstream connections (including 40 GbE). Also, as you consider migrating to a converged LAN and SAN, the EN4093R switch supports the newest protocols, including Data Center Bridging/Converged Enhanced Ethernet (DCB/CEE) that can be leveraged in either an iSCSI, Fiber Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), or NAS converged environment. EN4093R's stacking capabilities simplify management for clients by stacking up to eight switches that share one IP address and one management interface. Support for Switch Partition (SPAR) allows clients to virtualize the switch with partitions that isolate communications for multi-tenancy environments.
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Transparent networking capability
With a simple configuration change to "easy connect" mode, the EN4093R switch becomes a transparent network device, invisible to the core, eliminating network administration concerns of Spanning Tree Protocol configuration/interoperability, VLAN assignments and avoidance of possible loops. By emulating a host NIC to the data center core, it accelerates the provisioning of VMs by eliminating the need to configure the typical access switch parameters.
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SDN ready - OpenFlow enabled
The EN4093R switch is Lenovo's first 10 GbE Flex System offering with OpenFlow. OpenFlow is the new open protocol that enables the network administrator to easily configure and manage virtual networks that control traffic on a "per-flow" basis. OpenFlow creates multiple independent virtual networks and related policies without dealing with the complexities of the underlying physical network and protocols.
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Integrated network management
A key challenge is the management of a discrete network environment. The EN4093R 10Gb Scalable Switch is tightly integrated and managed through the IBM Flex System Manager. The switch also supports a command-line interface (CLI) for integration into existing scripting and automation. Network management can be simplified by using port profiles, topology views, and virtualization management.
