At the Structure conference today, Facebook’s vice president of global engineering and infrastructure, Jay Parikh said that the company is now testing a new super-fast Ethernet switch to move data around its server farms.
The Ethernet switch, which Facebook calls the Wedge 100, will offer 32 ports capable of delivering 100 gigabits per second. Current tech used at Facebook supports just under 40 gigabits per second.
Most networking hardware vendors worldwide already offer 100 Gigabit Ethernet switches. But Facebook has always been one with open palms and loves to shares its tech with the world through its Open Compute Project. So, we can expect switches of the same specifications to be available for other firms to use and build on top of.
Apparently, Facebook has now deployed “several thousand” Wedge switches in its data centers, the blog post announcing the hardware reads.
Thousands of Wedges have now been deployed throughout our data centers, and we’re pleased to announce that the Wedge design was recently accepted by OCP. Wedge is generally available for ordering by anyone in the networking community, and its designs are open for all to review and customize.
The company has already built and shared designs for a top-of-rack switch that goes by the name of Wedge, as well as the 6-pack modular switch. It also has its own server and storage devices. This is Facebook’s latest need-driven hardware project.
Parikh, referring to the new Ethernet switch added that there are a few options available for the firm after it exhausts the 100 Gigabits. “We want the industry to move faster,” he added.
