In recent months, many people in our headquarters should have been no stranger to sometimes seeing a 6U height, probably one-meter long (actually 79cm) device sitting on a cart moving from the gallery to meeting room 317. The discussion for what that unit was usually went, “This is going to be the 2017 critical mission of our switch team.”
Yes, the QuantaMesh BMS T7128-IX5 is QCT’s first chassis-based, most powerful, state-of-the-art 128port 100G switch. But you may have also heard that Facebook introduced an 8U height chassis-based switch was 128x 100G to OCP dubbed Backpack in November of last year. So, what sets the IX5 apart from the competition if it is based on the same hardware architecture? The answer - our innovative network switch contains a 2+2 redundant PUS design, a 7+1 hot-swappable fan, a better user-friendly mechanical design, more secured electromechanical operation, and improved cooling which collects all the wisdom of our BU9, BIOS, BMC, server and switch teams. It also accommodates high-efficiency demands, scalability, and low latency characteristics that are expected of our QuantaMesh product line.
From Project Realization to For Sale in May 2017
Before the IX5 project kicked off in January 2016, there was a one year span spent discussing the product specifications, the market trends, and potential customers. The questions were:
- “Why not use a 12 off-the-shelf 100G switch?”
- “Why 128 and not 256 or 512 ports?”
- “Should we use an off-the-shelf PSU that has the power cord exposed in the front?”
- “Should the line card be positioned into the chassis vertically or horizontally?”
- “What BMC functions should it have?”
- “Who is going to consider and need such a unit?”
- “Who will truly believe the IX5 is beneficial?”
With all the above questions and difficulties getting solved and fixed in 2016 by our great engineers in BU9, the IX5 is ready to go-to-market in May 2017. It has already made an appearance at the OCP summit in San Jose, California in March of this year. At the event it was praised as being the best 128-port chassis-based open switch design, catching the eyes of next-wave companies like Dropbox, Criteo, Uber, and Rackspace. Furthermore, IX5 is now ready to demonstrate itself at Computex Taipei 2017 from May 30th to June 2nd. Everyone is welcome to stop by TICC 101D starting May 30th to check out and see why the IX5 will soon be positioning itself in the open network market.