Blade Network Technologies this week introduced Layer 2 and Layer 3 switches using 10 Gigabit Ethernet for NEC Sigmablade blade-server systems.(Compare Blade Server products)

The 10 Gigabit Layer 3 switch has 16 connections of 10 Gigabit Ethernet to server blades, and four 10 Gigabit uplinks. Each blade will get its own direct connection to the 10 Gigabit router, rather than going through, say, a Gigabit Ethernet access switch.

Blade says that its switches would consume one-twentieth the power that typical standalone 10 Gigabit Ethernet chassis-based switches consume, and is positioning the switches as a platform for handling traffic to virtual servers. Blade adds that they're also good for any applications that require high bandwidth - IPTV, surveillance video, iSCSI storage and remote backup, to name a few.

Blade was spun off of Nortel two years ago as it sought to bring its switching technology to a range of different blade-server vendors, and it supplies both HP and IBM. Earlier this year the company introduced Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit switches for rack-level network virtualization.

Blade is also bringing its "SmartPanel" to NEC. NEC customers can get a Layer 2 Gigabit Ethernet switch with the SmartPanel, a management feature which allows those customers with limited requirements or skills to set up the networking configurations more easily. For example, customers can set up as many as five groups of NEC server blades and apply security and bandwidth policies to each group.

The new switches will be branded NEC and sold as part of NEC's product family.

Jeff Caruso is site editor at Network World.