BLADE Network Technologies
Encyclopedia
Until its acquisition by IBM
in October 2010, BLADE Network Technologies (BLADE), based in Santa Clara, CA, was a supplier of Gigabit and 10G Ethernet
network infrastructure solutions that reside in blade servers and server and storage racks. BLADE is now part of IBM System Networking.
established
BLADE Network Technologies, Inc., as a privately held company from Nortel's Blade Server Switch Unit, focused on serving the networking requirements of the blade server market. In 2008, the company introduced its RackSwitch line of top-of-rack 1-10 Gigabit Ethernet data center switches. The company’s customers include more than half of Fortune 500 companies across 26 industry segments, which represents an installed base of more than 220,000 network switches and over 5 million switch ports connecting more than 1,100,000 servers.
IBM
acquired BLADE in October 2010.
BLADE’s top-of-rack and blade server switches exemplify a set of rules for the data center known as Rackonomics – an economical approach for provisioning essential server, storage and networking infrastructure that empowers enterprise data centers to control costs and contain sprawl while realizing massive scale-out economies. BLADE’s RackSwitch top-of-rack data center switch products leverage the company’s blade server networking heritage and unique focus on Rackonomics to perform with up to 12.4× less latency, 73 percent less energy and 6.5× better price/performance than comparable top-of-rack data center switches.
BLADE’s Cloud Ready Network Architecture and the BLADE products that define it equip networks operated by enterprises and cloud providers with five essential elements – high-bandwidth/low-latency switching, convergence to Ethernet, agile networking for virtual workloads, scalable management and advanced energy efficiency.
BLADE RackSwitch products include:
RackSwitch G8100 and G8124 10G Low Latency Switches
RackSwitch G8000 1-10G Aggregation Switch
BLADE’s switch modules for IBM:
BNT 10-port 10G Ethernet Switch Module
BNT 6-port 10G Ethernet Switch Module
BNT 1/10Gb Uplink Ethernet Switch Module
BNT Layer 2-7 Gigabit Ethernet Switch Module
BNT Layer 2/3 Copper Gigabit Ethernet Switch Module
BNT Layer 2/3 Fiber Gigabit Ethernet Switch Module
BLADE’s switch modules for HP BladeSystem include:
HP 10Gb Ethernet BL-c Switch
HP 1:10Gb Ethernet BL-c Switch
HP GbE2c Layer 2/3 Ethernet Blade Switch
HP GbE2c Ethernet Blade Switch
BLADE’s switch modules for NEC SIGMABLADE include:
NEC 1Gb Intelligent L2 Switch
NEC 1Gb Intelligent L3 Switch
NEC 10Gb Intelligent L3 Switch
BLADEHarmony Manager
Vikram Mehta, President and CEO
Mark Verbeck, Chief Financial Officer
Jim Sladek, Vice President of Finance
Bob Murden, Vice President of Operations
Shailesh Naik, Vice President of Sales
Dan Tuchler, Vice President of Strategy and Product Management
Tim Shaughnessy, Vice President of Marketing
Atul Tambe, Vice President of Hardware Engineering
Tim Chao, Vice President of Software Engineering and Advanced Technology
Ardene Fullerton, Director, Human Resources
Clive Surfleet, Advisor to CEO
BLADE’s Board of Directors includes:
David Helfrich, Partner, Garnett & Helfrich
Terry Garnett, Partner, Garnett & Helfrich
George Riedel, Chief Strategy Officer, Nortel
Vikram Mehta, President and CEO, BLADE Network Technologies
Ford Tamer, Ph.D., Operating Partner, Khosla Ventures
Juniper
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
in October 2010, BLADE Network Technologies (BLADE), based in Santa Clara, CA, was a supplier of Gigabit and 10G Ethernet
Ethernet
Ethernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies....
network infrastructure solutions that reside in blade servers and server and storage racks. BLADE is now part of IBM System Networking.
History
On February 13, 2006, Garnett & Helfrich Capitalestablished
BLADE Network Technologies, Inc., as a privately held company from Nortel's Blade Server Switch Unit, focused on serving the networking requirements of the blade server market. In 2008, the company introduced its RackSwitch line of top-of-rack 1-10 Gigabit Ethernet data center switches. The company’s customers include more than half of Fortune 500 companies across 26 industry segments, which represents an installed base of more than 220,000 network switches and over 5 million switch ports connecting more than 1,100,000 servers.
IBM
IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
acquired BLADE in October 2010.
Technology and products
BLADE offers a comprehensive line of top-of-rack and bladed 1-10 Gigabit Ethernet switches for high-performance computing (HPC), multimedia (VOD, IPTV, VoIP), online gaming, financial analysis, security, cloud networking, Web 2.0 and other I/O-intensive applications.BLADE’s top-of-rack and blade server switches exemplify a set of rules for the data center known as Rackonomics – an economical approach for provisioning essential server, storage and networking infrastructure that empowers enterprise data centers to control costs and contain sprawl while realizing massive scale-out economies. BLADE’s RackSwitch top-of-rack data center switch products leverage the company’s blade server networking heritage and unique focus on Rackonomics to perform with up to 12.4× less latency, 73 percent less energy and 6.5× better price/performance than comparable top-of-rack data center switches.
BLADE’s Cloud Ready Network Architecture and the BLADE products that define it equip networks operated by enterprises and cloud providers with five essential elements – high-bandwidth/low-latency switching, convergence to Ethernet, agile networking for virtual workloads, scalable management and advanced energy efficiency.
RackSwitch
BLADE’s RackSwitch is a 1-10 Gigabit Ethernet top-of-rack data center switch. BLADE’s RackSwitch product family extends virtualization by mirroring the benefits of server virtualization within the network at the rack level, saves energy through rack-friendly cooling and alleviates pain by removing complexity through simplified management and fabric convergence. RackSwitch is the only switch designed specifically for IBM’s iDataPlex, a custom-configured rack system featuring design innovations in cooling and efficiency to address I/O-intensive Web 2.0 applications and cloud computing.BLADE RackSwitch products include:
RackSwitch G8100 and G8124 10G Low Latency Switches
RackSwitch G8000 1-10G Aggregation Switch
Blade Server Switches
BLADE’s embedded Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet Switches are available for IBM BladeCenter, HP BladeSystem, NEC SIGMABLADE and Verari BladeSwitch to consolidate server I/O, enable network virtualization, and reduce data center complexity by adding network intelligence within the blade server chassis.BLADE’s switch modules for IBM:
BNT 10-port 10G Ethernet Switch Module
BNT 6-port 10G Ethernet Switch Module
BNT 1/10Gb Uplink Ethernet Switch Module
BNT Layer 2-7 Gigabit Ethernet Switch Module
BNT Layer 2/3 Copper Gigabit Ethernet Switch Module
BNT Layer 2/3 Fiber Gigabit Ethernet Switch Module
BLADE’s switch modules for HP BladeSystem include:
HP 10Gb Ethernet BL-c Switch
HP 1:10Gb Ethernet BL-c Switch
HP GbE2c Layer 2/3 Ethernet Blade Switch
HP GbE2c Ethernet Blade Switch
BLADE’s switch modules for NEC SIGMABLADE include:
NEC 1Gb Intelligent L2 Switch
NEC 1Gb Intelligent L3 Switch
NEC 10Gb Intelligent L3 Switch
BLADE Network Management and Virtualization Software Products
SmartConnect with VMreadyBLADEHarmony Manager
BLADE Professional Services
BLADEHarmony Professional Services offer tight integration of systems, software, services and support to enable rapid Planning, Design, Installation, Operation and Optimization for rack-level server environments.Management
BLADE's management team includes:Vikram Mehta, President and CEO
Mark Verbeck, Chief Financial Officer
Jim Sladek, Vice President of Finance
Bob Murden, Vice President of Operations
Shailesh Naik, Vice President of Sales
Dan Tuchler, Vice President of Strategy and Product Management
Tim Shaughnessy, Vice President of Marketing
Atul Tambe, Vice President of Hardware Engineering
Tim Chao, Vice President of Software Engineering and Advanced Technology
Ardene Fullerton, Director, Human Resources
Clive Surfleet, Advisor to CEO
BLADE’s Board of Directors includes:
David Helfrich, Partner, Garnett & Helfrich
Terry Garnett, Partner, Garnett & Helfrich
George Riedel, Chief Strategy Officer, Nortel
Vikram Mehta, President and CEO, BLADE Network Technologies
Ford Tamer, Ph.D., Operating Partner, Khosla Ventures
Industries served
BLADE primarily serves the IT markets in industries including finance, automotive, telecom, education, government, health care and defense.OEM partners
BLADE has OEM agreements with the following vendors:- HP
- IBMIBMInternational Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
- NECNEC, a Japanese multinational IT company, has its headquarters in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. NEC, part of the Sumitomo Group, provides information technology and network solutions to business enterprises, communications services providers and government....
Juniper
See also
- Fibre Channel over EthernetFibre Channel over EthernetFibre Channel over Ethernet is an encapsulation of Fibre Channel frames over Ethernet networks. This allows Fibre Channel to use 10 Gigabit Ethernet networks while preserving the Fibre Channel protocol...
- IBM BladeCenterIBM BladeCenterThe IBM BladeCenter is IBM's blade server architecture.-History:Originally introduced in 2002, based on engineering work started in 1999, the IBM BladeCenter was a relative late comer to the blade market. But, it differed from prior offerings in that it supported the full range of high powered x86...
- List of mergers and acquisitions by IBM