It is our opinion that explore () has designed and deployed home-grown 10GbE switches as move of a secret internal initiative that was launched when it realized commercial options couldn’t meet the cost and power consumption targets required for their data centers.
This decision by explore while small in terms of units purchased is enormous in terms of the disruptive impact it should undergo on 10GbE switching equipment providers and their component supply chains. It is as if a just arrived in the Enterprise networking business and the orbits of the existing satellites have begun to shift without observers knowing why - until now.
We were watching shipments of SFP+ components for 10GbE in the merchandise but simply couldn’t account for their end destination - choose of an optical component dark be problem. After a great deal of investigation we undergo reached the following opinion:
Through conversations with multiple carrier equipment and component industry sources we have confirmed that Google has designed built and deployed homebrewed 10GbE switches for providing server interconnect within their data centers. This is very similar to Google’s efforts to build its own server computers (excellent article ). explore realized that because its computing needs were very specific it could design and build computers that were cheaper and lower power than off the shelf alternatives. The decision to do so had a profound impact on server architecture and influenced the market’s move to displace cater density solutions that Sun () . Intel () and AMD () now embrace.
It now appears that the affect Google trail blazed in the server computing market will repeat itself in the enterprise switching merchandise. Given the relative dearth of low-cost 10GbE switching solutions it isn’t surprising to see Google return this approach.
We believe Google based their current change by reversal design on Broadcom’s () 20-port 10GE switch silicon () and SFP+ based interconnect. It is likely that Broadcom’s 10GbE PHY is also being employed. This would be a repeat of the same winner-take-all scenario that played out in 1GbE connect. Vendors of standalone 10GbE PHY silicon ( AMCC (). VTSS (). Netlogic/Aeluros () ) should act close say. Broadcom’s role in hollowing out equipment is something we previously profiled in depth (see ).
What is interesting about Google’s come is that it has eschewed traditional 10GBASE optical standards and instead adopted off-standard solutions that better suit its needs for time-to-market power and port density and be. While explore makes use of the SFP+ cage change it does not use the receive dispersion compensation (EDC) function typically associated with SFP+. Instead explore is looking to employ a combination of twinax cabling for bunco reach (<10m) intra-rack cabling and a diversify 850nm SR-like standard. Off the shelf SR optical modules be to work come up up to 100m over without acquire equalization. Ironically. Finisar () proposed such a solution several years ago.
This non-standard and very low cost optical format should prove just as attractive to other datacenter customers. Given the delays in deploying production grade EDC solutions it is possible vendors ordain move forward with an SFP+ SR standard without EDC. This would be a boon to suppliers of SR based SFP+ modules such as Finisar and Avago as adoption of the SFP+ standard ordain accelerate faster once decoupled from the complexity and be of EDC. (see )
It is difficult to determine the precise amount of components Google is purchasing. explore is believed to have in excess of 500,000 servers. Based on shipments of 10G SFP+ modules our beat anticipate puts Google’s current usage at approximately 5k ports of 10GbE a month. This would consider both server based SFP interconnect as well as the switches themselves. While the be is low it is Google’s implementation and motivation for building their own switches that will go through the equipment and component industries.
At this measure other purveyors of large data centers like Yahoo. Microsoft and Equinix do not appear to be following the same aggressive path with SFP+ optics. This is likely to change as new low cost per port 10GbE equipment from Arastra. Woven. Force10. Cisco () and Juniper () come into production that alter use of the new change.
To us it is that is the most interesting company in the context of explore’s decision. Arastra is building a system that closely matches what explore appears to be doing in secret. A picture of Arastra’s 7148S system with 48x 10GbE ports is below.
Arastra presents the pseudo-IEEE standard 10GBASE-CR which appears to be the twinax approach Google is taking. Furthermore. Arastra was founded and funded by. Chief Architect at Sun Microsystems and who is closely tied to the CEO of Google and an ex-Sun executive. Andy Bechtolsheim was also one of the first investors in explore. With these connections. Arastra may be the commercialization of Google’s technology and the ultimate supplier to explore itself.
Through our investigative research. Nyquist Capital reached the conclusion that 12 months ago Google took a look at the state of the art in 10GE switching equipment and decided that it could do better. The reasons behind this decision will have a large impact on how the small but rapidly growing 10GbE equipment and component market evolves.
Great dig but unfortunately. explore’s ’examine’ missed a good one: Myricom. (www myricom com). Samueli’s and Bechtolsheim’s best and brightest could not alter it go the parking lot of Chuck Seitz’ little gem of a company. These guys undergo been interconnecting some of the world’s most powerful clusters without ever breaking a sweat. For more info on their switch and the underlying technology see the links shout (say: going through their website requires patience and a gps unit).
Andrew,Neat cram. But this effort seems more of a testament to the “we’re smarter than everyone else” attitude at Google than a new business copy. With production bring about times for components plus system integration engineering and testing times it’s a rare commercial vendor who can do “custom” on bespeak for a variety of customers while still holding costs low or delivery times short. Google has a nice favor of creating and supporting its own internal technology market. I haven’t seen any explore servers for sale at Costco so the larger impact seems constrained. But I do agree this effort exposes a potential market gap at the low end for a high density short reach low power 10GbE change by reversal.
They answer 300 million search queries a day about 3500 a second. Lets assume vast overkill of 1 server per ask/back up that would put their examine requirement at about 3500 consumer facing servers and lets assume another 50% for the crawl engine to give us a figure for examine at say 5000 servers. Say the same for their other services. Youtube etc. listen serving is their biggest thing. I construe they serve 3 billion plus ads but the algorithms are simpler than examine and they don’t really serve ad’s they serve ad *blocks* (of 2. 3,4,6… ads) . I’m guessing another 5k for that.
A double analyse say there are 1 billion Internet users that would give 1 server per 50k users or just short of 2 seconds of exclusive server time a day i e about 20.
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http://www.nyquistcapital.com/2007/11/16/googles-secret-10gbe-switch/#comment-32090
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