HP has announced a new OpenFlow-enabled core switch series designed for big data applications such as Hadoop that will be available worldwide in October.

But said in the meantime customers can run with its new FlexFabric 5900 switch series, a physical switch with advanced networking functionality for policies and quality of service to a VMware environment to receive increased network automation.

HP said its OpenFlow-enabled FlexFabric 12900 is the first OpenFlow core switch that has been developed to allow for the software-defined network.

It has been designed to handle bandwidth spikes using built-in networking standard Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links (TRILL).

“The HP FlexFabric 12900 switch series can move up to three times more data across the network per 40GbE port compared to leading competitors,” HP said.

HP SVP and general manager for networking Bethany Mayer said the switch has been designed to handle modern-day data center demands.

“For the past 20 years, data center networks have lagged in supporting new enterprise demands for cloud, virtualization and big data,” Mayer said.

HP has been feeding design elements into its networking portfolio that help the network become more software enabled for a number of years now.

IDC VP of Network Infrastructure Rohit Mehra said its portfolio is becoming better equipped to help data centers overcome issues seen with scale, much of which is being addressed through automated provisioning.

“Today’s data center networks are somewhat static and limiting in their ability to scale – they are also complex and require manual provisioning for cloud and virtualized environments,” Mehra said.

As part of this week’s announcement, HP has also announced its Virtualized Services Router (VSR) which it says allows services to be delivered through a virtual machine, reducing the footprint inside the data center.

The HSR 6800 router series consolidates routing, firewall, switching and comes with an increased amount of security services, HP said.

The router will be available in the second half of the year, HP said.