Force 10, a Silicon Valley maker of data center networking gear, has added a switch to its product portfolio that is purpose-built for virtualized data center environments. New attributes of the S60 top-of-rack Gigabit Ethernet switch include ultra-deep buffering and bare-metal auto-configuration.

The San Jose, Calif.-based vendor designed the product to handle highly dynamic traffic patterns generated by virtualized multi-core servers and "bursty" applications such as streaming and storage. S60 aims to avoid network congestion at the I/O these conditions may cause. The switch is currently under testing and Force 10 expects to start shipping it at the end of June.