Miercom, an independent test services firm, has named a data center core switch and a top-of-rack switch manufactured by 3Com, a networking solutions provider, the first data center class products to receive its “Certified Green”designation.

The Miercom testing confirmed that 3Com’s H3C S12508 and H3C S5820X switches are designed to provide enterprise customers superior performance, scale and resiliency while using up to 50 per cent less energy than competitive solutions, helping to dramatically lower the cost of data center operations.

By the end of 2010, more than 50 per cent of large data centers will reach maximum power consumption levels, leaving consumers in a major energy crisis as these organizations will be unable to scale data operations to support their business needs, a statement said.

This means power efficiency and accurate data on power consumption is absolutely vital for the future. To avert this crisis, organisations need to not only measure their own data on power consumption, but also, they need to begin demanding that vendors disclose all product efficiency data in order to serve as a key criterion for customers who are choosing the tools that will best provide them with sustainable next-generation data centers.

The Miercom certification detailed several factors that provided 3Com’s H3C solutions with a distinct advantage over other products including: a modern design that leverages the latest full feature/low power ASIC technology, highly efficient modular I/O components and power supplies and a set of power saving features that can be configured through management.

In addition, the report highlighted H3C’s Intelligent Resilient Framework (IRF) technology as another 3Com “green” innovation that further reduces energy consumption by helping customers to simplify and collapse network architectures into flatter, two tier network designs, requiring fewer discrete platforms and network layers, and further reducing power and cooling requirements.

“I would like to congratulate 3Com on being the first networking company to receive recognition for its design of green data center switches,” said Rob Smithers, CEO of Miercom.

“We are proud to recognize solutions such as the H3C S12508 and S5820X as they are leading the industry in bringing environmental awareness further into in the data center by helping enterprises improve the efficiency of their data center operations in 2010 and beyond,” he added.

“The switches were proven in testing to offer maximum throughput while consuming less than half of the power for 10GE modules compared to the published specification for competing vendors' modules."

Mahmoud El-Ali, general manager, 3Com Middle East, said: “Lowering power consumption while maximizing capacity are top concerns among enterprise CIOs. This is especially true in the data center where energy costs are rapidly escalating and where power limitations can inhibit the scale out of IT capacity to support business operations.”

“This certification validates our commitment to deliver the highest performing networking solutions that are also highly energy efficiency, affording customers the flexibly to design and build a new generation of highly scalable and sustainable data centers,” El-Ali concluded. – TradeArabia News Service