Executive Summary 

Building data center networks to connect compute and storage doesn’t have to be difficult or costly.  BE Networks Verity is a network automation platform that allows IT architects to deploy high performance, highly resilient data networks using Open Networking hardware at a fraction of the price of the legacy vendor platforms.  With Open Networking, a common software operating system (SONiC) can be used on all hardware platforms, enabling your architects and engineers to have a single easy to use method for programming network equipment.  A single operating system frees you to buy equipment from a number of vendors, resulting in competitive pricing while minimizing the effect of tight supply chains on your business.  

Building The Network You Need 

Based on the information you provided, you are planning to build a new data center network to support 400 servers/GPUs housed in 10 physical racks.  The servers will have Dual NICs and connect to the network with Dual (MLAG) redundancy.  With these requirements, you will need to purchase 20 48-port 10-Gigabit Leaf Switches and 4 32-port 10-Gigabit Spine Switches. 

To connect the leaf switches to the spines, you will need to purchase 32 10-Gigabit SFP+/QSFPs.  To connect the servers to the Leaf switches you will need an additional 1600 10-Gigabit SFP+/QSFPs. 

Based on the hardware pricing you provided for your current vendor, you can expect the following total expenses: 

Spine Switches: $144,000 

Leaf Switches: $180,000 

Optics: $1,168,000 

Cost with your legacy vendor: $1,492,000 

In comparison, an equivalently sized Open Networking solution would cost a fraction of that number.  Ignoring for a minute the huge OPEX benefits of running a single network operating system, the immediate CAPEX savings are tremendous.  Using the same input variables you provided, the Open Networking build will cost: 

Cost with Open Networking hardware $596,800 

By using Open Networking hardware, you can save $895,200, at the same time decreasing your risk around supply chain constraints and eliminating vendor-lock-in. 

I would love to explore these numbers with you further, help you select a hardware vendor, and dive into the additional savings you can expect due to improved operations by using our Verity solution. 

Please reach out if you are ready to increase your business agility and save a ton of money with BE Networks. 

Thanks! 

-Amir  
CEO – BE Networks