10 Gigabit Ethernet switch

Fully managed OpenVPX 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch from GE provides connectivity for high performance computing (HPC) applications 

GE Intelligent Platforms has announced the fully managed NETernity™ GBX460 rugged 6U OpenVPX data plane switch module featuring GE’s unique OpenWare™ switch management capability. The GBX460 is GE’s latest offering in a range of high density 10GigE solutions targeted at demanding high performance computing (HPC) and networking applications such as communications, ISR and radar. GE now offers customers a choice between the fully managed GBX460 with the flexibility, versatility and functionality provided by the OpenWare suite of protocols and switch management software, or the outstanding time-to-operation of the unmanaged version.

The GBX460 with OpenWare supports high throughput interprocessor communication (IPC) between 10GigE-enabled processing nodes for deployed network-centric defense and aerospace applications. Its non-blocking 10GigE ports provide high performance throughput across the VPX backplane; the non-blocking feature means that the GBX460 can pass traffic across all 10GigE ports at wire speed without bottlenecks.

The GBX460 with OpenWare supports features required by customers to meet the needs of next generation network-centric operations: Layer 2/3 switching and routing, including support for IPv6 addressing; extensive management for configuration and protocol options; and the ability to customize the software to meet specific application requirements.

“Today’s military organizations are demanding a tremendous amount of bandwidth and computing to drive the new network-centric battlefield,” said Rubin Dhillon, Industry Manager for Defense Communications at GE Intelligent Platforms. “Applications such as ISR, communications, situational awareness, and radar require very high performance, multi-core and multi-compute embedded system architectures. Ethernet has become the interconnect of choice and now 10Gigabit Ethernet can enable unprecedented performance for these demanding applications.”

The GBX460 can support multiple OpenVPX slots/module profiles for maximum flexibility and throughput. The standard build provides 20 x 10GigE data plane fat pipes and 16 x 1 GigE control plane ultra-thin pipes to support multi-board 6U VITA 65 (OpenVPX) system configurations. Multi-board systems can be configured by using the GBX460 together with GE processor cards such as the SBC622 Intel® Core™ i7-based single board computer and IPN250 and NPN240 NVIDIA® CUDA™ GPGPU processors to scale to extraordinary levels of performance for size, weight and power (SWaP) constrained applications such as deployed image, radar, sonar and signal processing.

Optional builds for the GBX460 include support for up to 24 10GigE ports or up to four front panel 10GigE fiber ports to connect to external networks.

GE’s OpenWare™ is available for the GBX460. Comprehensive and powerful, this switch management environment provides integrated management services including configuration, monitoring, switching control, addressing, routing and all supported protocols. Configuration and monitoring functions are accessible from a serial console or via a network. Supported access methods include Telnet, SSH and SNMP.