CEO Focus
DCS: And how does Force10 work with other vendors when it comes to offering point solutions and/or end to end solutions, as seems to be a current trend?
HW: Force10’s Technology Alliance Partners Program is an extensive eco- system of key partners to help deploy end-to-end solutions. The Technology Alliance Partner Program includes industry leading companies such as Oracle, VMware, Citrix and IBM, to name a few. Force10 works closely with these Technology Alliance Partners to bring innovative, end-to- end solutions to our customers.
DCS: And how does Force10 work with the channel in the current virtualisation/the Cloud opportunity?
HW: Force10 has an extensive network of channel partners helping to bring our products to customers around the world. Force10’s channel partner programme helps our partners be successful in selling Force10 networking products in virtualised/cloud computing environments.
DCS: In terms of market coverage, are there areas, either by industry or geography, that Force10 still needs to address, or have you got most bases covered?
HW: Force10 offers a full end-to-end portfolio for the three types of data centre customers that we focus on, i.e. portal, hosting and enterprise backbone. Each of these types of data centre customers has different network needs. Force10 is well positioned to continue to meet the needs of these ever expanding markets and to move into adjacent areas.
DCS: What advice would you give to customers embarking on the Cloud journey?
greater port density, BNIX is experiencing the benefits from the energy efficiency and the reduced total cost of ownership (TCO) it needed to keep its costs competitive for its members. Terenine Technology Solutions, a technology services provider based in Tennessee, is also good data centre success story.
It
HW: The journey to the cloud is not the same for all customers. The business models, and therefore the technology, of portal, hosting and enterprise customers are different. Force10 understands these different types of companies and how their network requirements vary. Our innovative products have been developed to meet the needs of these three different customer types as they follow their journey to the Cloud.
DCS: Can you provide brief details of a couple of recent customer success stories?
HW: Yes, the first would be the Belgium National Internet eXchange (BNIX), which deployed Force10’s ExaScale E-Series family of switch/routers for the scalable, cost- effective delivery of 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GbE) peering services to its enterprise business and service provider customers. As an Internet exchange, BNIX provides high- performance interconnections between its members.
As its membership grew and its applications became more bandwidth- intensive, their IP traffic scaled accordingly but adding capacity to its existing architecture became increasingly cumbersome and cost prohibitive. By deploying the Force10 ExaScale switch/router, with its purpose-built operating system and
26 | DATA CENTRE SOLUTIONS |
www.datacentresols.com
has deployed Force10 switch/router solutions to provide core-to-edge switch/routing functionality as a part of their continuous improvements to their data centres.
When Terenine outgrew its previous network, its data centre managers looked for a solution that could offer uncompromising reliability and performance yet could provide port densities that would maximise return on investment. Terenine selected our ExaScale E1200, E600 and E300 switch/routers, which gave the organisation unmatched stability, density and performance by utilising non-blocking, line-rate Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) and 10 GbE densities. Terenine also deployed our C-Series C300 switch as well as top-of-rack S- Series edge routers that provided additional cost-effective10 GbE port density and reliable non-blocking performance that will facilitate seamless growth as their customers increase their respective bandwidth needs.
DCS: Any final thoughts?
HW: The data centre market is going through a remarkable and exciting transformation. Consequently, it’s a great time to be in this industry. And we feel particularly confident here at Force10 because we have a large number of newly launched products and products in the pipeline that will help the industry through this transition. So we look forward to an exciting and busy year as 2011 evolves.
February/March 2011
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