The Lenovo RackSwitch™ G8272 is a cost-effective, enterprise class 10/40 Gb Ethernet solution that delivers exceptional performance, being lossless and low latency. The G8272 also delivers excellent cost savings as you consider acquisition costs, energy costs, operational expenses, and ease of use and management. It has a feature-rich design with key virtualization features, such as CEE/FCoE, high availability, and enterprise class Layer 2 and Layer 3 functionality.

The RackSwitch G8272 supports 10 Gb and 40 Gb Ethernet. With 1.44 Tbps throughput, the G8272 provides massive scalability and low latency, which is ideal for latency-sensitive applications, such as high-performance computing clusters and financial applications.

This product guide provides essential pre-sales information to understand the structure of the RackSwitch G8272 offering, its key features and specifications, components and options, and configuration guidelines.

This guide is intended for technical specialists, sales specialists, sales engineers, IT architects, and other IT professionals who want to learn more about the RackSwitch G8272 and consider its use in IT solutions.

Changes in the June 27 update:

• Added CNOS 10.4.2 features
• Updated Network connectivity: Added Lenovo ThinkSystem RackSwitch
• Updated Storage connectivity: Added Lenovo ThinkSystem DS Series

Introduction

The Lenovo RackSwitch™ G8272 that uses 10 Gb SFP+ and 40 Gb QSFP+ Ethernet technology is specifically designed for the data center. It is ideal for today's big data, cloud, and optimized workload solutions. It is an enterprise class Layer 2 and Layer 3 full featured switch that delivers line-rate, high-bandwidth switching, filtering, and traffic queuing without delaying data. Large data center-grade buffers help keep traffic moving, while the hot-swap redundant power supplies and fans (along with numerous high-availability features) help provide high availability for business sensitive traffic.

The RackSwitch G8272 is ideal for latency sensitive applications, such as high-performance computing clusters and financial applications. In addition to the 10 Gb Ethernet (GbE) and 40 GbE connections, the G8272 can use 1 GbE connections.

The RackSwitch G8272 is shown in the following figure.


Figure 1. Lenovo RackSwitch G8272

Did you know?

With exceptional port density and flexibility with break-out cables, the RackSwitch G8272 can support up to 72x 10 Gb Ethernet connections in a 1U rack form factor.

The RackSwitch G8272 offers a choice of the Networking Operating Systems (NOS):

• The Cloud NOS provides a simple, open and programmable network infrastructure with cloud-scale performance. It delivers a software-defined Ethernet solution that is simple to manage and easy to deploy using common management tools, and it enables support of automation and orchestration applications for tight integration into the data center ecosystem.
• The Enterprise NOS is a data center-class NOS progressively developed over the past decade to deliver highly reliable, high-performance Ethernet and converged switching and interoperability with existing network infrastructures. ENOS has a feature-rich design with virtualization, high availability, and enterprise class Layer 2 and Layer 3 functionality. ENOS supports OpenFlow which helps easily create software defined virtual networks (SDN) and enables a remote controller to modify the behavior of network devices.

The RackSwitch G8272 supports the Open Network Install Environment (ONIE) which is a small Linux-based operating system that provides an open install environment for networking devices without operating systems. 

Key features

The RackSwitch G8272 is considered particularly suited for the following environments:

• 10 GbE server connectivity with 40 GbE upstream aggregation
• Virtualized environments with VM-aware networking
• Converged SAN and LAN network via NAS, iSCSI, or FCoE
  • Reduced I/O cost (CAPEX) with fewer adapters, cables, and transceivers to purchase
  • Reduced complexity (OPEX) with fewer components to manage and lower energy cost
• Applications demanding better performance and lower latency
• Investment protection with 40 Gb Ethernet, Cloud, and SDN

The RackSwitch G8272 offers the following features and benefits:

• High performance

  The 10 Gb/40 Gb switch provides the best combination of low latency, non-blocking line-rate switching, and ease of management. It has a throughput of 1.44 Tbps.

• Lower power and better cooling

  The RackSwitch G8272 uses as little as 123 W of power, which is less than comparable switches use. The front-to-rear or rear-to-front cooling design of the RackSwitch G8272 reduces data center air conditioning costs by having airflow match the servers in the rack. In addition, variable speed fans help to automatically reduce power consumption.

• Layer 3 functionality

  The RackSwitch G8272 includes Layer 3 functionality, which provides security and performance benefits, as inter-VLAN traffic stays within the switch. This switch also provides the full range of Layer 3 protocols from static routes for technologies, such as Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) and Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) for enterprise customers.

• Converged fabric

  The RackSwitch G8272 switch supports Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE) which helps enable customers to combine storage, messaging traffic, VoIP, video, and other data on a common data center lossless Ethernet infrastructure. As a result, clients can deploy a single server interface for multiple data types, which can simplify the deployment and management of server network connectivity while maintaining the high availability and robustness that is required for storage transactions.

• Seamless interoperability

  RackSwitch switches perform seamlessly with other vendors' upstream switches.

• Fault tolerance

  The RackSwitch G8272 offers redundant hot-swap hardware components, learns alternate routes automatically, and performs faster convergence if there is a link, switch, or power failure.

• Open Network Install Environment (ONIE) (Requires an optional license key)

  The ONIE is a small Linux-based operating system that provides an open install environment for networking devices without operating systems. ONIE enables a network switch ecosystem for end users to choose among different Network Operating Systems by discovering NOS installer images and loading them onto the switch.

The RackSwitch G8272 supports the following networking operating systems:

• Lenovo Cloud Networking Operating System (CNOS)

  The new Cloud NOS provides a simple, open and programmable network infrastructure designed to scale for your business needs. Its intelligent, cloud-scale performance delivers a software-defined Ethernet solution that is simple to manage and easy to deploy using common management tools. Cloud NOS is based on open, industry standards for better data center interoperability, and it enables support of automation and orchestration applications for tight integration into the data center ecosystem.

  With its high-performance architecture and support for an extensive set of routing protocols, Cloud NOS provides reliable, high-performance fabric for traditional, converged and hyperscale solutions. Cloud NOS can help you consolidate server and storage networks into a single fabric. Converged Enhanced Ethernet delivers value for your iSCSI and NAS enterprise storage environments.

• Lenovo Enterprise Networking Operating System (ENOS)

  The Lenovo ENOS is a data center-class network operating system progressively developed over the past decade to deliver highly reliable, high-performance Ethernet and converged switching and interoperability with existing network infrastructures. 

  ENOS has a feature-rich design with virtualization, UFP, high availability, and enterprise class Layer 2 and Layer 3 functionality. ENOS supports OpenFlow which helps easily create software defined virtual networks (SDN) and enables a remote controller to modify the behavior of network devices.

  ENOS can help you consolidate server and storage networks into a single fabric. Converged Enhanced Ethernet delivers value for your iSCSI, NAS and FCoE enterprise storage environments.

The RackSwitch G8272 with Cloud NOS offers the following additional features:

• Automated VM-aware network provisioning

  The Lenovo CNOS Network Policy Agent, a ThinkAgile Network Orchestrator feature, gives increased visibility of the virtual infrastructure, including VM and virtual network information. It provides automated VM-aware provisioning by automatically configuring VLANs in the physical network based on the auto-discovered virtual network topology. The agent also performs ongoing dynamic updates to the physical network configuration in response to new VMs, updated VMs, and deleted VMs and virtual networks, eliminating errors with manual configuration.
  Note: The Network Policy Agent works with the Nutanix software version 5.0.2 or higher.

• Pro-active congestion monitoring

  Telemetry enables continuous monitoring of networking devices to detect potential congestion problems, such as packets dropped by the switch when ports are being used close to their line rate or switch buffers are being temporarily overflown (for example, in case of microbursts).

• Zero Touch Provisioning

  Zero Touch Provisioning (ZTP) enables a switch to automatically provision itself using the resources available on the network, without manual intervention. ZTP automatically handles the process of upgrading the switch software image and installing configuration files.

• Python Scripting

  You can create and execute local Python scripts on switches to make small programs that allow a switch to automatically provision itself, perform fault monitoring, upgrade the image files, or auto-generate configuration files. You can implement version control systems, automatically generate alerts, create custom logging tools, and automate the management of network devices.

• REST API Programming

  The Lenovo REpresentational State Transfer (REST) Application Program Interface (API) enables you to remotely configure and manage a Lenovo switch using REST and HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP). It also allows switch management integration into management applications, such as Lenovo xClarity.

The RackSwitch G8272 with Enterprise NOS offers the following additional features:

• Virtual Fabric

  The RackSwitch G8272 can help customers address I/O requirements for multiple NICs while reducing cost and complexity. By using Unified Fabric Port, you can carve a physical NIC into multiple virtual ports (2 - 8 vPorts) and create a virtual pipe between the adapter and the switch for improved performance, availability, and security.

• Transparent networking capability

  With a simple configuration change to Easy Connect Mode, the RackSwitch G8272 becomes a transparent network device that is invisible to the core and eliminates network administration concerns of Spanning Tree Protocol configuration and interoperability and VLAN assignments and avoids any possible loops. By emulating a host NIC to the data center core, it accelerates the provisioning of VMs by eliminating the need to configure the typical access switch parameters.

• OpenFlow enabled

  The RackSwitch G8272 offers benefits of OpenFlow. OpenFlow is the open API that enables the network administrator to easily configure and manage virtual networks that control traffic on a “per-flow” basis. It creates multiple independent virtual networks and related policies without dealing with the complexities of the underlying physical network and protocols. The RackSwitch G8272 is also the ideal switch to use with industry compliant OpenFlow controllers.