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Dell's 24-port 10G switch packs a lot of bandwidth into its 1U form factor and backs it up with redundant power supplies and full Layer-3 switching -- at less than $500 per port
Ah, the rarified air of 10G switching, very fast, very expensive, very exclusive -- until now. Dell has unveiled a 24-port 10G switch that, priced at $10,088, comes in at around $416 per SFP+ port. Now that's cheap.
My initial qualms with Dell PowerConnect switches -- the line was launched in 2001 -- were the same as for any brand-new hardware line: How durable and reliable would they be? Those concerns have been put to rest based on the performance of the PowerConnect 3000-, 5000-, and 6000-series switches that I've now been running in production for years. In fact, a PowerConnect 6024 gigabit L3 switch has been running a significant part of the lab network without complaint for the past six years. One expects that the 8024F will follow in those footsteps, but only time can tell.
[ Dell's EqualLogic PS6010 series iSCSI arrays have also shifted into high gear. See "InfoWorld review: Dell EqualLogic iSCSI SAN kicks it to 10G." ]
The 8024F is probably best suited as a high-end server consolidation switch or perhaps even an L3 core (with a redundant counterpart) for a smaller but throughput-hungry datacenter. The 8024F is equipped with 20 SFP+ ports and four dual-media ports that support either SFP+ or 10GBase-T connections. Thus, it's possible to run twinaxial cabling straight into every port on the switch or to...