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Facebook Reveals Open Source, Modular Switch for Datacenters
This week Facebook Inc. unveiled the "6 pack" -- a new "open hardware," modular network switch, which the company is calling the first of its kind.
Facebook had previously created a network switch called "Wedge," which it says is serving as the base building block for the new 6-pack.
The 6-pack offers companies "12 independent switching elements. Each independent element can switch 1.28Tbps."
"Each element runs its own OS on the local server and is completely independent, from the switching aspects to the low-level board control and cooling system," the company said in a blog post announcing the new switch. "This means we can modify any part of the system with no system-level impact, software or hardware.
"On the '6-pack' line card we leveraged all the 'Wedge' development efforts (hardware and software) and simply added the backside 640Gbps Ethernet-based interconnect," the company continued. "The line card has an integrated switching ASIC, a microserver, and a server support logic to make it completely independent and to make it possible for us to manage it like a server."
Many more details about the 6-pack and how it runs are available in the blog post.
According to Facebook, it plans to have 6-pack become a contribution to the Open Compute Project.
In November Facebook also announced "data center fabric," its datacenter networking architecture solution that uses BGP4 as its sole routing protocol.
About the Author
Becky Nagel is the former editorial director and director of Web for 1105 Media's Converge 360 group, and she now serves as vice president of AI for company, specializing in developing media, events and training for companies around AI and generative AI technology. She's the author of "ChatGPT Prompt 101 Guide for Business Users" and other popular AI resources with a real-world business perspective. She regularly speaks, writes and develops content around AI, generative AI and other business tech. Find her on X/Twitter @beckynagel.