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Dell Force10 (formerly nCore Networks, Force10 Networks), was a United States company that developed and marketed 10 Gigabit and
40 Gigabit Ethernet 40 Gigabit Ethernet (40GbE) and 100 Gigabit Ethernet (100GbE) are groups of computer networking technologies for transmitting Ethernet frames at rates of 40 and 100 gigabits per second (Gbit/s), respectively. These technologies offer significantly ...
switches In electrical engineering, a switch is an electrical component that can disconnect or connect the conducting path in an electrical circuit, interrupting the electric current or diverting it from one conductor to another. The most common type ...
for
computer network A computer network is a set of computers sharing resources located on or provided by network nodes. The computers use common communication protocols over digital interconnections to communicate with each other. These interconnections ar ...
ing to corporate, educational, and governmental customers. It had offices in North America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region. In August 2011,
Dell Dell is an American based technology company. It develops, sells, repairs, and supports computers and related products and services. Dell is owned by its parent company, Dell Technologies. Dell sells personal computers (PCs), servers, data ...
completed the acquisition of Force10 and changed the name to Dell Force10. In mid 2013, the Force10 designation was dropped from the products in favor of the data center networking line of the Dell Networking brand, and some of the other product lines were sold.


History


Founding

The company was founded by PK Dubey, Naresh Nigam and Som Sikdar. It was named by founder Som Sikdar, an avid
sailor A sailor, seaman, mariner, or seafarer is a person who works aboard a watercraft as part of its crew, and may work in any one of a number of different fields that are related to the operation and maintenance of a ship. The profession of the ...
, after Beaufort Force 10 (Storm, Whole gale) on the Beaufort scale for wind speeds, indicating a storm with high speed winds, and matched their focus on
10 Gigabit Ethernet 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GE, 10GbE, or 10 GigE) is a group of computer networking technologies for transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of 10  gigabits per second. It was first defined by the IEEE 802.3ae-2002 standard. Unlike previous Et ...
switching and routing products.


Acquisition

In January 2009, Force10 was acquired by Turin Networks (Founded by Philip Yim), which had previously purchased Carrier Access Corporation and White Rock Networks. Carrier Access Corporation itself had previously purchased Mangrove Systems and White Rock Networks had previously purchased Seranoa Networks. On July 20, 2011 Dell announced it intended to fully acquire Force10 for an undisclosed amount. With the acquisition, Dell offered products for the data center where Dell focuses on the Ethernet switches. Dell Force10 continued to offer their non-Ethernet backhaul and metro-access platforms as well. Telmar Network Technology of Plano, Texas, announced the acquisition of the Force10 Turin transport product lines from Dell in May, 2013, and has resumed support and development of the Traverse, TraverseEdge, TransAccess, TransNav, MasterSeries, Adit, Wide Bank, and Broadmore products. Telmar Network Technology, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Jabil Circuit, Inc. of St. Petersburg, FL. iQor of St. Petersburg, FL, announced, in December 2013, the acquisition of the Jabil/Telmar Network Technology Aftermarket Services business, including the extended life products (from Alcatel, DECS, Force10/Turin, Transport Access products) and all of Telmar Network Technology. It continued support and development of the Traverse, TraverseEdge, TransAccess, TransNav, Adit, WideBank, and Broadmore products supporting Telecommunications companies worldwide in all applications from Digital cross connect system (DCS), SONET/SDH Optical transport to network access.


Products

Force10 Networks has several product lines: Ethernet switches are marketed in four series, and other networking equipment for telecommunication providers and metropolitan networks: :*
Ethernet switches A network switch (also called switching hub, bridging hub, and, by the IEEE, MAC bridge) is networking hardware that connects devices on a computer network by using packet switching to receive and forward data to the destination device. A ne ...
:* Traverse series: Multiservice transport switches: Chassis based multi service platform offering SDH/
SONET Synchronous optical networking (SONET) and synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) are standardized protocols that transfer multiple digital bit streams synchronously over optical fiber using lasers or highly coherent light from light-emitting dio ...
services, carrier ethernet and Digital cross connect system, or cellular services. The chassis range from 6 to 20 slots with up to 95 Gbps per shelf,Dell Force10 product pages on th
Traverse series
visited 19 February 2013
:* Master series: a backhaul platform for mobile/cellular networks. The Master series exists as a two-slot (1 Rack unit high) or a 3 RU - eight slot chassis offering backhaul services for 2G to 3G GSM networkDell Force10 product page o
Master series
visited: 19 February 2013
:* Axxius platform: a backhaul platform for both GSM and
UMTS The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third generation mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. Developed and maintained by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), UMTS is a component of the In ...
cellular networks over E1 or T1 (SONET) network,Accius 800
product page, visited: 19 February 2013
:*Adit 600: Access platform for carrier grade (IP) networks offering an access platform for telecommunication providers to give their customers generic access to their NextGen network,Datasheet for th
Adit 600
platform, downloaded: 18 February 2013
and :* TransNav: software for the management of
metropolitan area network A metropolitan area network (MAN) is a computer network that interconnects users with computer resources in a geographic region of the size of a metropolitan area. The term MAN is applied to the interconnection of local area networks (LANs) in ...
s.


Ethernet switches

The main product line for Dell Force10 was Ethernet switches divided into four product series: *Z series: Datacenter distributed core switches: 1 model, the Z9000, 2 RU high with 40 Gbit/s QSFP+ Ethernet ports for datacenter usage offering 2,5 Tbit/s switching capacity on 32 port at 40Gbit/s or up to 128 ports at 10Gbit/s using QSFP+ - 4 SFP+ 10Gbit/s splitters. *C series: Datacenter/core chassis based switches: 2 models, C150 (9RU) and C300 (13RU) for 1 and 10 Gbit/s *E series: Virtualized core chassis based switches. campus, office or datacenter aggregation/core switches: 3 models for 1 and 10 Gbit/s aggregation * S series: Edge-switches: 8 models 1RU or 2RU for 1 and 10 Gbit/s ethernet In January 2002, Force10 released the E-Series E1200
switch In electrical engineering, a switch is an electrical component that can disconnect or connect the conducting path in an electrical circuit, interrupting the electric current or diverting it from one conductor to another. The most common type ...
/ router, claiming line-rate 10 Gigabit Ethernet switching. Force10 Networks hoped to expand from
LAN switching A network switch (also called switching hub, bridging hub, and, by the IEEE, MAC bridge) is networking hardware that connects devices on a computer network by using packet switching to receive and forward data to the destination device. A netw ...
to midsize data centers and enterprise campus networks. Force10 products included the E-Series family of switch/routers, the C300 switch, the S-Series family of access switches and the P-Series security appliances. In 2007 Force10 announced it had a patent relevant for
100 Gigabit Ethernet 40 Gigabit Ethernet (40GbE) and 100 Gigabit Ethernet (100GbE) are groups of computer networking technologies for transmitting Ethernet frames at rates of 40 and 100 gigabits per second (Gbit/s), respectively. These technologies offer significantly ...
switching. Force10 Networks uses
NetBSD NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was forked. It continues to be actively developed and is a ...
as the underlying operating system that powers
FTOS FTOS or Force10 Operating System is the firmware family used on Force10 Ethernet switches. It has a similar functionality as Cisco's NX-OS or Juniper's Junos. FTOS 10 is running on Debian. As part of a re-branding strategy of Dell FTOS will be re ...
(the Force10 Operating System). In 2013 the name FTOS will be replaced by DNOS as the generic operating system name for all Dell Networking portfolio. Force10 made a donation to the NetBSD Foundation in 2007 to help further research and the open development community. From January 19, 2012, through mid-2013, Force10 products were available as Dell products and newly ordered products were sold with the Dell logo and colors.


S Series

The S series Ethernet switches offered 1 Gbit/s, 10 Gbit/s, and 40 Gbit/s ports in 1U or 2U form factor.Product page on th
Force10 S-series
switches, visited: 19 February 2013
The S-series start at the S25 series with 24 1Gbit/s ports with (S25V)
Power over Ethernet Power over Ethernet, or PoE, describes any of several standards or ad hoc systems that pass electric power along with data on twisted-pair Ethernet cabling. This allows a single cable to provide both data connection and electrical power to ...
, S25N copper ports or S25V fibre/SFP ports. Apart from that the switches offer several uplink options The S50 series is very similar to the S25 except that the S50 offers 48 ports. Following the S25 and S50 are several types as S55 and S60, also offering 1 Gbit/s access ports and 10 Gbit/s uplink ports, where each model has a speciality, such as low latency or deep data-buffers (S60). The top of range switches are the S4810 (fiber) or S4820 (copper) with 48 x 10Gbit/s SFP+ (S4810) or
10GBASE-T 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GE, 10GbE, or 10 GigE) is a group of computer networking technologies for transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of 10  gigabits per second. It was first defined by the IEEE 802.3ae-2002 standard. Unlike previous Et ...
(S4820) and 4 QSFP+ 40Gbit/s uplink ports. The S4800 series are marketed as distribution switches for both datacenter as campus networks for large networks or (collapsed) core switches for smaller networks. The S4800 series switches can be stacked using either 10Gbit/s or 40Gbit/s ports using fiber links or copper/twinax based direct attached ports. The pass-through latency ranges from 800 nano seconds for the S4810 to 3,3 micro seconds for the copper based S4820. The S4810, S4820 and the MXL or M-I/O switches use the
Broadcom Broadcom Inc. is an American designer, developer, manufacturer and global supplier of a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software products. Broadcom's product offerings serve the data center, networking, software, broadband, wirel ...
Trident+ ASIC. This is the same ASIC as used in the Dell PowerConnect 8100 series but running the FTOS operating system, while the PowerConnect 8100 series runs a Broadcom built firmware. In June 2013 the S5000 series switches were announced. This switch was the first switch to display the new brand name Dell Networking and the new name for FTOS: Dell Networking Operating System or DNOS. Dell Force10 also offers a
FTOS FTOS or Force10 Operating System is the firmware family used on Force10 Ethernet switches. It has a similar functionality as Cisco's NX-OS or Juniper's Junos. FTOS 10 is running on Debian. As part of a re-branding strategy of Dell FTOS will be re ...
based blade switch: Force10 MXL 10/40 Gbit/s switch for their M1000e blade enclosure, available since the second half of 2012.Dell product page on th
MXL blade switch
visited 19 February 2013
The MXL switch is a S4810 switch in chassis form-factor offering 32 internal 10Gbit/s 10GBASE-KR ports, 2 external 40Gbit/s (uplink or stack) ports and 2 expansion slots for 2 ports QSFP+ 40Gbit/s ports or 4 port 10Gbit/s SFP+ or 10GBaseT copper ports for uplinks or stacking. Apart from the MXL multi-layer switches Dell also offers the IO Aggregator offering 32 x 10Gbase KR internal ports and 2 x 40Gbit/s QSFP+ uplink ports and 2 slots for either dual port QSFP+ or quad port SFP+ fiber or 10GBaseT copper uplink ports All Dell Force10 series Ethernet switches ran the
FTOS FTOS or Force10 Operating System is the firmware family used on Force10 Ethernet switches. It has a similar functionality as Cisco's NX-OS or Juniper's Junos. FTOS 10 is running on Debian. As part of a re-branding strategy of Dell FTOS will be re ...
or Force10 Operating System, but some switches are compatible with
Open Compute Project The Open Compute Project (OCP) is an organization that shares designs of data center products and best practices among companies, including ARM, Meta, IBM, Wiwynn, Intel, Nokia, Google, Microsoft, Seagate Technology, Dell, Rackspace, Hewlet ...
Open Network Linux.


Architecture

All 10 Gbit/s products, except for the E-series, used the Broadcom Trident+ ASICs or other Broadcom-based Asics for the 1 Gbit/s models. The E-series used a Force10 proprietary ASIC. All layer2 / layer3 switches in a spine/leaf architecture.Jason Edelman Blog o
40 Gbps datacenter switching
, 10 December 2011. Retrieved 17 May 2012
This architecture is used within a switch, where the communication goes via the internal
backplane A backplane (or "backplane system") is a group of electrical connectors in parallel with each other, so that each pin of each connector is linked to the same relative pin of all the other connectors, forming a computer bus. It is used as a backb ...
and the concept of the Z-series uses the same system for the ''distributed core'' between the switches. The switches that offer 40Gbit/s interfaces can use these ports for 40Gbit/s switch to switch links or split such a link in 4 x 10Gbit/s ''direct attached'' links or fibre optic cable to other switches or 10Gbit/s NIC's


Chassis switches

The Z-series and S-series are 1 RU or 2 RU stand-alone switches where the E- and C-series are chassis based switches. The chassis based switches all use a 100% passive backplane: according to the company this results in a backplane that is more energy efficient and allows to use the same backplane for much higher speeds: the company uses the same backplane when the maximum speed of ports was 10Gbit/s as the current 40Gbit/s and is ready for 100Gbit/s. The backplane designed for their Terascale switches in 2004 is the same as the Exascale systems in 2012. The clockspeed used on the backplane was governed by the routing or switching-modules, allowed by the lack of any active components on the backplane.


Power consumption

The chassis based datacenter core-switches (E-series) uses far less power then direct competitors like the Cisco Nexus 7000 or the Juniper EX8216: fully utilized with 1Gbit/s ports the Force10 E1200i uses 4.77
Watt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...
per
Gbps In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...
throughput where the Nexus uses 9.28 Watt and Juniper 6.15. Similar differences can also be seen when using all 10Gbit/s ports (F10: 3.34 Watt per Gbps, Nexus: 7.59 Watt and Juniper 4.69 Watt]TMC Net website on Green Datacentre
Tolly Group highlights F10 low power consumption
10 September 2010. Visited 18 May 2012


Customers

Force10 customers include enterprises in industries such as media, financial services, oil and gas, Web 2.0, and gaming. Service providers, including Internet exchanges, wholesale providers, cable operators, and content delivery providers. Force10 customers include
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation, multinational technology company, technology corporation producing Software, computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at th ...
,
Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
,
Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin ...
, Lexis Nexis,
Zynga Zynga Inc. () is an American developer running social video game services. It was founded in April 2007, with headquarters in San Mateo, California. The company primarily focuses on mobile and social networking platforms. Zynga states its missio ...
, Level(3), TATA Communications (formerly VSNL, Teleglobe),
Mzima Networks PacketExchange is a British multinational network services provider based in London. Founded in 2002 by Jason Velody and Kieron O'Brien, both supported by Nigel Titley, Giles Heron, and Katie Snowball as the founding team, its network connected ...
,
Stealth Communications Stealth Communications is an American fiber-based Internet service provider (ISP), installing and maintaining its own fiber optic network throughout New York City. Stealth began rolling out its Gigabit Internet services in late 2013 to businesse ...
,STEALTH COMMUNICATIONS DEPLOYS FORCE10 E-SERIES IN NEW YORK PEERING EXCHANGE TO INTERCONNECT 200 VOICE AND DATA PROVIDERS
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Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo! Inc. (2017–present), Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds ma ...
, isoHunt, Sega, NYSE Euronext, Veritas DGC, Equinix, CERN,
NOAA The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (abbreviated as NOAA ) is an United States scientific and regulatory agency within the United States Department of Commerce that forecasts weather, monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditio ...
, University College London Networks Research Group, and the Baylor College of Medicine.Silicon Valley's next payday
CNNMoney.com, Om Malik, June 19, 2006, accessed August 14, 2007


See also

* Digital cross connect system


References


External links

*
Dell Force10 Configuration Guides and Command Line ReferencesQuick Configuration Guides - Dell Storage Wiki
* ttp://www.networkworld.com/community/node/62095 How does the new Force10 S60 stack up? 5 switches compared - Network Worldbr>www.iqormarketplace.com
{{Dell Networking companies of the United States Networking hardware companies Telecommunications companies established in 1999 Companies acquired by Dell Dell products 1999 establishments in California