- HPE has introduced its second generation data center distributed services switch
- The new switch adds capacity as well as improves telemetry
- Cisco recently entered this market with its first smart switch but appears to have different target customers than HPE
Cisco made headlines with the release of its data center smart switches earlier this year, but it turns out HPE has already been there and done that. Now, it’s actually coming out with its second generation of distributed services switches to expand its grip on the market.
HPE’s first foray into this arena in 2021 saw it introduce options for 10G and 25G applications via the CX-10000, which it built in collaboration with AMD Pensando. The company is now building on that foundation with new 100G and 400G options via the CX-10040 platform.
In addition to increasing network capacity for use cases like co-location, data center interconnect and AI, HPE’s next generation switches boost AIOps and network performance monitoring with unsampled (a.k.a. high-fidelity) telemetry data.
According to 650Group Co-founder and Analyst Alan Weckel, HPE is playing in a rapidly growing market.
“Outside of AI, these programmable/smart switches have one of the highest growth rates in switching,” Weckel told Fierce. “While this product class is just a few hundred million right now, it will be over a billion dollar market in a few years.”
Data center evolution
To understand why HPE’s move (and Cisco’s in February) matters, it’s important to know a tiny bit of data center networking history. Before HPE broke the mold with its CX10000 switch in 2021, data center networking and security were entirely separate.
Security tools – like firewalls, intrusion prevent systems (IPS) and the like – from Palo Alto, Juniper, Fortinet and (wouldn’t you know it) Cisco were deployed in their own rack within the data center. Networking functionality – Layer 2, 3, Ethernet, etc. – was on its own switch.
What HPE did was take those security functions and distribute them throughout the data center by collapsing them onto its new networking switches via data processing units (DPUs). Hence why what are now classed as “smart switches” by Cisco were called “distributed services switches” by HPE.
Clash of the data center switching titans
For now, Weckel noted that Cisco and HPE appear to be targeting different markets and different customers. Indeed, while Cisco’s smart switch appears to be targeting hyperscalers, HPE Data Center and Cloud Networking Marketing Lead John Gray told Fierce that’s the one cohort HPE is not after – at least not yet.
Since launching the CX10000 a few years back, HPE’s sweet spot in the market has been in the mid-size enterprise and data center. “With this new platform, the 100-gig and the 400-gig, we’re definitely going to trend upmarket to larger scale enterprise data centers,” managed service providers, systems integrators, and colocation and cloud service providers,” Gray said. It’s not focused on hyperscalers or Tier-1 service providers though, he added.
While it doesn’t yet have an 800-gig offering in this area, Gray acknowledged there is “a natural evolution” in that direction that could occur. And that could help HPE grab a larger slice of what could end up being a very, very large pie.