[Beowulf] 48-port 10gig switches?

[David Mathog]

A lot of 1 GbE switches use around 15W/port so I thought 10 GbE switches
would be real fire breathers.  It doesn't look that way though, the
power consumption cited here:

http://www.voltaire.com/NewsAndEvents/Press_Releases/press2010/Voltaire_Announces_High_Density_10_GbE_Switch_for_Efficient_Scaling_of_Cloud_Networks

is "the industry’s lowest power consumption of 6.3 watts/port" or 302W.
 I wonder what tricks they used to increase the speed to 10 GbE and drop
the power consumption.  In any case, in a 1U chassis that's still enough
power to cook something if the ventilation shuts down, so it is a good
thing it has redundant fans.  I could not find a price for the Voltaire,
but it isn't going to be cheap.  Somewhere above $20K maybe?

Regards,

David Mathog
mathog at caltech.edu
Manager, Sequence Analysis Facility, Biology Division, Caltech