Facebook is once again putting the US$41 billion computer network industry to shame
The new innovation succeeds last year’s 6-Pack to become the latest step in Facebook’s move to build a fully-equipped 100G data centre
Facebook has produced yet another computer network innovation that will once again floor the US$41 billion network tech industry.
And Facebook will again share it with the world for free, putting commercial network tech vendors on notice. (We’re looking at you, Cisco).
The new innovation, revealed on Tuesday, is something called Backpack and it’s a second-generation computer switch, the successor to the one it released last year called the 6-Pack that directly challenged tech made by market leader Cisco (and others, like Juniper).
The difference is, the Backpack is way, way faster.
The 6-Pack was a 40G switch, which means it could stream 40G worth of data around a data centre network. The Backpack is an 100G optical switch, which means it’s 2.5 times faster, and using fibre optics (aka light) to move data around instead of the traditional and more limited copper wires.
The Backpack is also a companion to the new switch Facebook announced last spring, called Wedge 100. The Wedge 100 is what’s known as a “top of rack” switch, that connects a computer rack of servers to the network. The Backpack then connects all the Wedge 100 switches together. In network jargon this is known as a “network fabric.”