Two major new data center networking technology announcements came on Monday.

Arista Networks rolled out a new Ethernet switching platform and Extreme Networks announced a software product the company says will simplify the challenge of network management in a highly virtualized environment.

According to Extreme, its new "Direct Attach" technology takes switching between virtual machines out of the physical server and puts the function into the network.

It allows virtual servers to be attached to the network directly, omitting the software-switching layer in the server hosting them.

Extreme will provide the new architecture through its licensable ExtremeXOS software module, which will be available with the company's portfolio of data center switching products.

Expected to arrive on the market in the third quarter, the module will cost $995 per Ethernet switch.

"While embedded virtual switches have enabled early server-virtualization projects, they can limit performance and increase complexity," Gartner Research VP Joe Skorupa said in a statement.

"Emerging technologies like direct I/O and VEPA allow VM-to-VM switching to be implemented in hardware in the first physical switch, increasing performance and simplifying management."

The architecture reduces the number of managed switches in a virtualized environment by eliminating the virtual-switch layer.

According to the vendor, the technology also simplifies management and troubleshooting of the environment by enabling operators to use well-understood traditional networking tools, like ACL's, firewalls and IDS, on inter-VM traffic.

Arista Networks has released a new 10Gb Ethernet switch, which the company says is optimized for virtualization and cloud computing environments.

With 10 terabit-per-second switching capacity and 384 wire-speed L2/L3 10GbE ports in 11U rack space, the Arista 7500 platform is capable of pushing up to 5.76 billion packets per second.

Arista expects to release 40Gb Ethernet and 100Gb Ethernet versions of the 7500 platform in the future

"When deploying a cloud infrastructure in the data center, network performance, power efficiency, low latency and scalability are all key considerations," said in a statement Forrest Norrod, VP and general manager of Dell's Server Platform Division.

"The architecture of the Arista 7500 is ideally suited for cloud computing and a great match for Dell's PowerEdge server and EqualLogic iSCSI storage solutions where an uncompromised cloud network is critical for delivering the optimal customer experience."

The switch runs on Arista's Extensible Operating System, offering open access to Linux tools, network services and enables easy integration with third-party applications, according to the vendor.

Products from the new series, already available on the market, start at $140,000.