networks

Newer server processors pack more cores into fewer boxes, creating a need for network speed

Server consolidation has led Cisco to boost the speed of top-of-rack switches to 100G.

The networking giant last week announced the catchily named N9348C8D-H2, a 1U device packing 48 100G SFP-DD ports and eight 400G QSFP-DD uplinks.

At the Cisco Live event in Melbourne, Australia, this week, Cisco’s senior veep for datacenter and internet infrastructure, Kevin Wollenweber, said one reason the company created the device is that modern servers often feature a pair of fast network interface cards.

The twin cards are needed because sixth-gen server processors from Intel and AMD offer dozens, or even hundreds, of physical processor cores and therefore generate a lot of traffic.

The density of computing power those processors provide has led chipmakers and server manufacturers to suggest replacing handfuls of machines running older, power-guzzling Xeons and Epycs with boxes running more efficient sixth-gen…