Dell has expanded its network switch range with three new entries: Z9100, S3048 and S4048.

All three are being released under the Open Networking banner, which means they can run a choice of operating systems including Dell’s Networking OS9, Cumulus Linux, MLNX-OS from Mellanox, Switch Light from Big Switch Networks and a number of others.

“These advancements are another example of Dell helping our customers to future proof and accelerate the financial and performance rewards the software-defined data center promises,” said Arpit Joshipura, vice president of product management and strategy, Dell Networking.

“The new products announced today offer customers complete flexibility to take advantage of open networking environments and new computing models as well as the revenue streams these network infrastructures will allow.”

So very open

All three newcomers support the Open Network Install Environment (ONIE) - an open source project that defines a set of requirements for bare metal network switches to enables installation of a number of pre-qualified operating systems.

ONIE was originally created by Cumulus Networks, and adopted by the Open Compute Project in 2013. Soon afterwards, Dell released its first Open Networking product – the S4810 switch.

Dell’s Z9100 is the new flagship open switch, offering high port density in a 1U form-factor. It was designed for cloud, HPC and Web 2.0 applications, capable of multi-rate switching with a choice of 10/25/40/50/100GbE connectivity.

“The Dell Networking Z9100 is a ‘Swiss Army knife’ of connectivity that makes it suitable for almost any environment,” said John Fruehe, senior analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. “Additionally, with open networking becoming standard on products going forward, the complexity of buying and deploying across a wide range of environments has been greatly simplified.”

The new S3048 Top-of-Rack (ToR) switch was designed for small-to-medium sized businesses with an existing 1GbE install base. This is Dell’s first ever 1GbE open networking switch, and the vendor says open architecture has enabled it to cut power consumption and cost of the hardware in half, when compared to its previous ‘closed’ offering.

Meanwhile, the S4048 low-latency ToR switch is aimed squarely at Linux-based SDN environments, with a choice of 10GbE and 40GbE switching and support for advanced options like large hardware tables, VXLAN and expanding buffering.

S4048 is available immediately, S3048 will begin selling in May, while Z9100 is likely to appear on sale towards the end of 2015.