Broadcom on Wednesday introduced a new line of high-density, 25/100 gigabit Ethernet switches for cloud-scale data centers. The new StrataXGS Tomahawk Series is currently sampling to equipment makers, software developers, network operators and OS vendors, and interconnect solution providers, the company said.


StrataXGS Tomahawk Ethernet switches are the "first to deliver 32 ports of 100GE, 64 ports of 40GE/50GE, or 128 ports of 25GE on a single chip," helping cloud service operators scale out quicker and more affordably, according to Broadcom.


The additional bandwidth and support for the new 25GE and 50GE protocol standards provided by the new Tomahawk switches should appeal to builders of high performance computing (HPC) environments as well as "mega data center" operators building out leaf-spine networking architectures, the company said.


"Our StrataXGS Tomahawk Series will usher in the next wave of data centers running 25G and 100G Ethernet, while delivering the network visibility required to operate large-scale cloud computing, storage, and HPC fabrics," Rajiv Ramaswami, executive vice president of Broadcom's Infrastructure & Networking Group, said in a statement.


"This is the culmination of a multi-year cooperative effort with our partners and customers to prepare for this transition. We are pleased to see significant industry investment in the Tomahawk 32x100GE form factor as well as the 25G/50G Ethernet specification, which Broadcom defined and co-founded as an industry standard."


Broadcom's major partner in establishing the 25G/50G Ethernet specification, Microsoft, said its co-founder of the 25G Ethernet Consortium was on the right track with the new Tomahawk line of products.


"Broadcom is a valued partner in our efforts to advance software defined networking, RDMA in the data center and 25/50G Ethernet technology," said Albert Greenberg of Microsoft's Azure Networking group.


Here are the key features and specs for the new StrataXGS Tomahawk series of switches, per Broadcom: