Dell Force10 (formerly nCore Networks, Force10 Networks), was a United States company that developed and marketed 10 Gigabit and 40 Gigabit Ethernet switches for computer networking to corporate, educational, and governmental customers. It had offices in North America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region.
In August 2011, Dell completed the acquisition of Force10 and changed the name to Dell Force10. In mid 2013, the Force10 designation was dropped from the products in favor of the data center networking line of the Dell Networking brand, and some of the other product lines were sold.
History
Founding
The company was founded by PK Dubey, Naresh Nigam and Som Sikdar. It was named by founder Som Sikdar, an avid sailor, after Beaufort Force 10 (Storm, Whole gale) on the Beaufort scale for wind speeds, indicating a storm with high speed winds, and matched their focus on 10 Gigabit Ethernet switching and routing products.
Acquisition
In January 2009, Force10 was acquired by Turin Networks (Founded by Philip Yim), which had previously purchased Carrier Access Corporation and White Rock Networks. Carrier Access Corporation itself had previously purchased Mangrove Systems and White Rock Networks had previously purchased Seranoa Networks.
On July 20, 2011 Dell announced it intended to fully acquire Force10 for an undisclosed amount. With the acquisition, Dell offered products for the data center where Dell focuses on the Ethernet switches. Dell Force10 continued to offer their non-Ethernet backhaul and metro-access platforms as well.
Telmar Network Technology of Plano, Texas, announced the acquisition of the Force10 Turin transport product lines from Dell in May, 2013, and has resumed support and development of the Traverse, TraverseEdge, TransAccess, TransNav, MasterSeries, Adit, Wide Bank, and Broadmore products. Telmar Network Technology, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Jabil Circuit, Inc. of St. Petersburg, FL.
iQor of St. Petersburg, FL, announced, in December 2013, the acquisition of the Jabil/Telmar Network Technology Aftermarket Services business, including the extended life products (from Alcatel, DECS, Force10/Turin, Transport Access products) and all of Telmar Network Technology. It continued support and development of the Traverse, TraverseEdge, TransAccess, TransNav, Adit, WideBank, and Broadmore products supporting Telecommunications companies worldwide in all applications from Digital cross connect system (DCS), SONET/SDH Optical transport to network access.
Products
Force10 Networks has several product lines: Ethernet switches are marketed in four series, and other networking equipment for telecommunication providers and metropolitan networks: Ethernet switches Traverse series: Multiservice transport switches: Chassis based multi service platform offering SDH/SONET services, carrier ethernet and Digital cross connect system, or cellular services. The chassis range from 6 to 20 slots with up to 95 Gbps per shelf, Master series: a backhaul platform for mobile/cellular networks. The Master series exists as a two-slot (1 Rack unit high) or a 3 RU - eight slot chassis offering backhaul services for 2G to 3G GSM network Axxius platform: a backhaul platform for both GSM and UMTS cellular networks over E1 { SDH} or T1 (SONET) network, Adit 600: Access platform for carrier grade (IP) networks offering an access platform for telecommunication providers to give their customers generic access to their NextGen network, and TransNav: software for the management of metropolitan area networks.
Ethernet switches
The main product line for Dell Force10 was Ethernet switches divided into four product series: Z series: Datacenter distributed core switches: 1 model, the Z9000, 2 RU high with 40 Gbit/s QSFP+ Ethernet ports for datacenter usage offering 2,5 Tbit/s switching capacity on 32 port at 40Gbit/s or up to 128 ports at 10Gbit/s using QSFP+ - 4 SFP+ 10Gbit/s splitters. C series: Datacenter/core chassis based switches: 2 models, C150 (9RU) and C300 (13RU) for 1 and 10 Gbit/s E series: Virtualized core chassis based switches. campus, office or datacenter aggregation/core switches: 3 models for 1 and 10 Gbit/s aggregation S series: Edge-switches: 8 models 1RU or 2RU for 1 and 10 Gbit/s ethernet
In January 2002, Force10 released the E-Series E1200 switch/router, claiming line-rate 10 Gigabit Ethernet switching. Force10 Networks hoped to expand from LAN switching to midsize data centers and enterprise campus networks. Force10 products included the E-Series family of switch/routers, the C300 switch, the S-Series family of access switches and the P-Series security appliances.