Cisco Systems, the world’s largest network equipment company, has released its largest switch ever. The Nexus 7000 can move 15 terabytes of data per second, and is designed to connect distant data centers together. According to Forbes, that is fast enough to move the entire Wikipedia in about 40 seconds. The 1-meter tall box will require special cabling and cost US$200,000 a year to maintain and operate.
As companies move their servers and data storage into larger data centers, these types of switches are necessary. The continued growth of web-based applications is also supporting this trend. Networks are a lot like plumbing, but there’s only a finite amount of water on the planet. The amount of data produced and stored continues to grow.
According to a Reuters article, John Chambers, the long-time CEO of Cisco, believes network growth will continues at a fast pace for the next ten years as ISPs and data centers add capacity.
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