We saw a cool 64-port 400GbE switch at the OCP Regional Summit 2023 in Prague. The EdgeCore AS9736-64D is a Broadcom Tomahawk 4 25.6T switch that we saw at the show. We figured we would give it a quick highlight.
EdgeCore AS9736-64D 64x 400GbE Switch at OCP Regional Summit 2023 Prague
The AS9736-64D was the bottom switch in this stack. One can see the 64x QSFP56-DD ports in four rows of 16 ports.
Here is the rear of the switch. This switch only has four rear fan modules and two 2.4kW power supplies. We are going to have a 64-port 400GbE switch based on Tomahawk 4 review soon (if it is not published already.) This switch has half as many fan modules and power supplies as the one we are reviewing.
The management processor is still the Intel Xeon D-1548. It is a bit surprising not to see something like the Intel Xeon D-1700 series in a newer switch like this. Still, that CPU and the Tomahawk 4 switch chip are a combination well supported in SONiC, the main network operating system advertised with this switch.
Something that is a bit different with this switch is also that it can support OpenZR+. That is for handling things like regional and long-haul fiber runs.
Final Words
400GbE switches are still high-end these days, but we are going to have more coverage of the 400G ecosystem over the next few weeks and months. We just wanted to show off some of the cool hardware we saw. Sometimes that is a random switch at an OCP Summit booth.
If you are looking for more reasonable gear, we did an Edgecore AS7712-32X Switch Overview (A 32x 100GbE Switch) a few years ago. It is always fun to get to see what makes switches work.
And 16 of those QSFP-DD can support OpenZR+