Interop Spring is an international IT trade show which takes place in the US in New York and Las Vegas. I was at the Interop Las Vegas last week.

I have always viewed Interop as a networking event, and this wasn’t any exception. All of the [networking] industry heavyweights were at Interop Spring, and I made it a duty to stop at all of them for three reasons:

1. To get a feel for the general sentiment of the vendors,
2. To see where the vendors were on their way to the ‘cloud’, and
3. Check to see how HP, through which I was embedded into the show, was faring in the eyes of competitors.

HP Networking
HP Networking has grown from being a purveyor of basic managed and unmanaged ProCurve switches to a what they are today: producers of a full line of networking components, from switches to routers, and to everything in between, serving all sizes of enterprises, from the small SMBs all the way to the largest enterprise.

From my first interaction with HP Networking in August 2010 to now, I have seen a fleshing out of their portfolio from top to bottom. In performance, cost, reliability, and support, HP’s networking products have shown themselves to the quite competitive.

Also at Interop, HP announced their latest core switch, the 10500-series, with the HP Networking 10512 in attendance. They also talked about their involvement in the OpenFlow movement, and their vision for next-generation networking.

Some of the components of that vision are:

IMC
IMC is the management console for HP Networking. In the latest iteration, IMC has been given more capabilities. It delivers a very granular view into their management.

IMC is described by HP as follows

The latest version of the HP Intelligent Management Center (IMC) Enterprise Edition is a standalone, comprehensive management platform that delivers next-generation, integrated, modular network management capabilities that efficiently meet the needs of advanced, heterogeneous enterprise networks. IMC Enterprise Edition is designed on a service-oriented architecture (SOA) using a business application flow model as its core and featuring an on-demand, modularized structure. The allows the efficient implementation of end-to-end business management, while IMC software's modular design allows for the effective integration of traditionally separate management tools. Together, they provide complete management of resources, services, and users. The software is compatible with Microsoft® Windows® Server and supports the management of HP and third-party devices. The base license supports 200 managed devices. Additional node licenses can be purchased. Two nodes of Network Traffic Analyzer are also included.

• · Highly flexible, scalable deployment models
• · Powerful administration control
• · Rich resource management
• · Detailed performance monitoring and management
• · Flexible centralized reporting

Moreover, HP has built extensibility into IMC with eAPI. This exposure of the IMC APIs to developers delivers a long-term to buyers of HP Networking products.

IMC is available in both standard and enterprise editions.

DVPN
Dynamic VPN, as delivered by HP is a hub-and-spoke VPN architecture allows multiple remote branch and regional offices (spokes) to establish site-to-site IPsec VPN tunnels to secure connectivity to the headquarters or data centers (hub). HP Dynamic VPN (DVPN) is not a protocol, but an architecture. HP DVPN helps enterprises simplify the configuration and management of IPsec VPN tunnels.

HP DVPN policies share security access, management, and quality of service (QoS) policies to easily connect thousands of remote branch and regional offices to the corporate headquarters or data centers. Administrators no longer need to login to each VPN device to manually set up site-to-site VPN tunnels at each branch or regional office, corporate headquarters, and data centers. HP DVPN is an innovation to simplify secure WAN connectivity for the enterprise.

HP DVPN is a complete and cost-effective solution that is ideal for the hub-and-spoke topology, the most common topology for enterprises, where you also have an option for mesh connectivity. HP DVPN is a complete solution that spans across various domains such as routing, security, and address management.

HP FlexNetwork Architecture and DVPN
HP FlexNetwork Architecture is the industry’s leading end-to-end architecture comprising the HP FlexFabric for a converged and secured data center; HP FlexCampus for unified campus; and HP FlexBranch for simplified branch office solutions. HP FlexManagement provides the visibility and operational simplicity across the entire architecture with a single management platform. This architecture is open, scalable, secure, agile, and delivers a consistent experience across all three solution domains. HP DVPN simplifies the interconnectivity between data center, campus, and branch either with a hub-and-spoke or a full-mesh topology, further enhancing our proven FlexNetwork Architecture. Find out more about the HP FlexNetwork Architecture at hp.com/networking/FlexNetwork.

FlexNetwork

The HP FlexNetwork architecture delivers five primary benefits: an open and standards-based solution with scalability on three dimensions: security, agility, and consistency.

1. The FlexNetwork architecture is an open and standards-based solution.
2. The FlexNetwork architecture scales on three dimensions-functionality, connectivity, and capacity.
3. The FlexNetwork architecture is secure.
4. The FlexNetwork architecture delivers agility.
5. The FlexNetwork architecture delivers a consistent operating experience.

Virtual Connect

OpenFlow
HP is committed to open standards as a way of helping reducing the pain associated with enabling its customers to deploy cloud solutions, we were told.

As a result, HP joined OpenFlow, which aims to ease just that.

What is OpenFlow?

OpenFlow hides the complexity of the individual pieces of the network devices, centralizes the control of those devices in a virtualized manner and simplifies network management for network managers.

The OpenFlow protocol also uses a standardized instruction set, which means that any OpenFlow controller can send a common set of instructions to any OpenFlow-enabled switch, regardless of vendor.

Openflow is at www.openflow.org.

HP Networking 10500 Switch Series 

Without a doubt, the star of HP’s Interop Spring 2012 announcements was the new 10500 Switch series.

This new campus core switch is already making waves, and will henceforth be know by me, and probably to all as well, as the-switch-that-ejected-Cisco-switches-from-DreamWorks Animation Studios. 

This is a real beast of a switch.

There are four models in this range, from the entry-level 10504, the 10508, the 10508-V, and the top model, the 10512.

The top of the line 10512 model has a maximum switching capacity of 11.5 Tbps, and throughput of 8571 million pps - 64-byte packets, and 99.999% availability. It has 4 switch fabric slots, 12 I/O module slots. The 10512 also supports a maximum of 576 10-GbE ports or 576 Gigabit ports or 576 SFP ports or 48 40-GbE ports, or a combination of all of the above. Apart from the 10504, the 10500-series switched have 6 power supply slots. The 10504 has 4.

The HP Networking 10500 Switch Series product page is here.

HP Networking is here.

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This article previously appeared in the June 1, 2012 issue of The Interlocutor.
© 2005-2012, John Obeto for AbsolutelyWindows & Blackground Media Unlimited