Has been in the Internet industry, we all know that Facebook is developing its own software and hardware products, and they are trying to guide the development of this area, OCP open computing platform is an example. The company recently announced that it is independent of the development of next-generation data center with top of the rack TOR 100Gbps Ethernet switches.

This switch, called Wedge 100 32x100G reportedly uses the latest Tomahawk exchange Broadcom chip, the total exchange capacity 3.2Tbps. The product is naturally also part of OCP plan, its hardware design is open to the entire industry. In software, a variety of Linux-based open-source software can be run on it. Facebook said that these software FBOSS, and has been applied to the existing 40G switch.

For optical module manufacturers, the significance of this switch is that, Facebook had previously said the goal is to achieve the switch below the cost of $ 1 per Gbyte. Supports 500 meters instead of two kilometers of QSFP28 single-mode fiber optical module will be applied on such a switch, and the life of the product as well as relax in the working temperature requirements are.

In March this year, Facebook unveiled Broadcom-based Trident II chip 16X40G switch, and thus the introduction of dual-slot line card type and model, thus creating 128X40GE switch. The product claims to be able to upgrade from 10G per channel to 25Gbps. It was at that time, Facebook's engineers said they are developing 32X100G switches.

Facebook has not yet announced when this switch formal deployment of 100G, but look at the progress of the deployment of 40Gbps switch can be understood. Just a year and a half before Facebook began to launch 40Gbps top of rack switch TOR. That section design is one of the core Facebook a year ago launched a new data center architecture. The company said their 40G TOR switch is a lot of production, is expected to use for some time. The new 100G TOR switch deployment is still in an early stage. Either way, their goal is to use their own TOR switch all Facebook data center.