Wired Intelligent Edge

Hi all,

 

In the last few days - waiting for tomorrow announcement for new Switch series - my curiosity grown constantly and today reached its peak so I started a tentative investigation!

 

New products (and software features) are going to be announced very shortly and there is a lot of excitement around that...nowhere I was able to find any reference about those new series, at least none that is publicly readily available or none that can be discussed publicly without infringing a signed NDA by some already well informed Partner (Partners probably already know what is going to be announced)...so I found myself with a question: will I be able to find something already public (maybe published in a forgotten less used public zone or posted in a not-so-evident place on public websites)? that's a good challenge, bread and butter for my curiosity.

 

Let we see what is going on...so I asked myself "If a new product is going to be presented it needs to have its own Declaration of Conformity, isn't it?"...I'm going to have my first hit (Ehy...I don't want to spoil the party)!

 

So I targeted the HPE EU Compliance Declarations (DoC) & Certificates portal publicly available here:

 

https://h41388.www4.hpe.com/regulations/uk/en/regulations.html

 

and simply searched for "Aruba"...expecting to find none of really recent...instead...look below.

 

What I found? This...naaa...too simple!

 

 

Doh..this hide and seek game is becoming pretty interesting now...isn't it?

 

So now we have at least two new Switch series to start speaking about:

 

• Aruba 6300F
• Aruba 6300M

So what's happen when we look for those switch series on Network Lookup portal (https://h10145.www1.hpe.com/support/SupportLookUp.aspx)?

 

It happens that we find them!

 

Noooo...really? Yes, really.

 

OK, at this point...if things can be found so easily...all of it can't be so confidential otherwise someone did an uncoordinated publishing.

 

Back on track I was able to find Aruba 6300M and Aruba 6300F series:

 

Aruba 6300M Switch Series

 

• Aruba 6300M 24SFP+ 4SFP56 Swch (JL658A)
• Aruba 6300M 48SR5 CL6 PoE 4SFP56 Swch (JL659A)
• Aruba 6300M 24SR5 CL6 PoE 4SFP56 Swch (JL660A)
• Aruba 6300M 48G CL4 PoE 4SFP56 Swch (JL661A)
• Aruba 6300M 24G CL4 PoE 4SFP56 Swch (JL662A)
• Aruba 6300M 48G 4SFP56 Swch (JL663A)
• Aruba 6300M 24G 4SFP56 Swch (JL664A)

Aruba 6300F Switch Series

 

• Aruba 6300M Fan Tray (JL669A)
• Aruba 6300F 48G CL4 PoE 4SFP56 Sw (JL665A)
• Aruba 6300F 24G CL4 PoE 4SFP56 Sw (JL666A)
• Aruba 6300F 48G 4SFP56 Sw (JL667A)
• Aruba 6300F 24G 4SFP56 Sw (JL668A)

But...wait...what's about looking around a little bit...example: for any series starting with the cipher 6 at this point (like as example the 6400, 6500 or 6200) what would I find?

 

Doh...great idea...and what I found?

 

I found the Aruba 6400 Switch series...noooo, really? Yes, really.

 

Aruba 6400 Switch Series

 

• Aruba 6405 Swch (R0X26A)
• Aruba 6410 Swch (R0X27A)
• Aruba 6405 96G CL4 PoE 4SFP56 Swch (R0X29A)
• Aruba 6405 48SFP+ 8SFP56 Swch (R0X30A)
• Aruba 6400 Management Module (R0X31A)
• Aruba 6400 48p 1GbE CL4 PoE Mod (R0X38A)
• Aruba 6400 48p 1GbE CL4 PoE 4SFP56 Mod (R0X39A)
• Aruba 6400 48p 1GbE CL6 PoE 4SFP56 Mod (R0X40A)
• Aruba 6400 48p SR5 CL6 PoE 4SFP56 Mod (R0X41A)
• Aruba 6400 24p 10GT 4SFP56 Mod (R0X42A)
• Aruba 6400 24p SFP+ 4SFP56 Mod (R0X43A)
• Aruba 6400 48p 10G/25G SFP28 Mod (R0X44A)
• Aruba 6400 12p 40G/100G QSFP28 Mod (R0X45A)
• Aruba 6400 Fan Tray (R0X32A)
• Aruba 6400 C16 Inlet Adapter (R0X33A)
• Aruba 6400 C20 Inlet Adapter (R0X34A)
• Aruba 6400 1800W PS/C16 Accessory (R0X35A)
• Aruba 6400 3000W PS/C20 Accessory (R0X36A)
• Aruba 6400 4-post Rack Mount Kit (R0X37A)

Gosh!

 

Note: those Aruba 6400 listed SKUs appear really temporary (like placeholders for the new-to-come definitive ones)...by the way it looks like there are no DoCs about Aruba 6400 Switch series yet.

 

At very first sight  it looks like the Aruba 6400 switch series is the modular one instead Aruba 6300M and Aruba 6300F Switch series provides fixed ports (with SFP56!)...I wonder what F and M letterings mean and, moreover, if those three series are all ArubaOS-CX based (if so a possible feature parallel with series like Aruba 2930F and 2930M stops prematurely...I mean when considering switch series driven by ArubaOS-Switch the F final letter represents Frontplane - VSF - Stacking capability and M letter represents Backplane Stacking capability...on a switch series potentially driven by ArubaOS-CX what will F and M letters eventually mean?).

 

Let we see...

Psst...

 

https://media.now.hpe.com/program.aspx?key=ArubaOct2019en

 

😉

This link might work better :).

 

https://www.arubanetworks.com/switch-forward/

 

 

Hi all, I know...I know. Discovered Aruba 6x00 references few days ago...just postponed my post to be correct.

Well...I'm so much used to VSX on ArubaOS-CX (and VSF on ArubaOS-Switch) that discovering VSF was (re)implemented on ArubaOS-CX using Aruba 6300 Switch series sounds really strange to me...a pity instead is to understand that Aruba 8400 Modules aren't compatible with Aruba 6400. Let we see...

VSF is targetted at the access layer for associated simplicity of managing less logical nodes, whereas VSX is addressing high-availability and up-time during upgrade which is a must for Agg and Core (where the 6400 fits the most).

 

VSF will be the new primary stacking method for both 6300F (fixed) and 6300M (modulair). VSF is working great in the current access switches, so great that is reimplemented in the new CX access switches.