HP FlexFabric 12900 Switch Series
Designed to support virtualized data centers and the evolving needs of private and public cloud deployments

Features & Benefits:

Product architecture

• Modern scalable system architecture
  Provides nonblocking, lossless Clos architecture with VOQs and large buffers with the flexibility and scalability for future growth
• Distributed architecture with separation of data and control planes
  Delivers enhanced fault tolerance and facilitates continuous operation and zero service disruption during planned or unplanned control-plane events
• Advanced Comware modular operating system
  Brings native high stability, independent process monitoring, and restart through the modular design and multiple processes of HP Comware v7 software; supports enhanced serviceability functions
• In-Service Software Upgrade (ISSU)
  Provides an upgrade of the entire chassis, or an individual task or process, with zero packet loss
• Multitenant Device Context (MDC)
  Virtualizes a physical switch into multiple logical devices, with each logical switch having its own processes, configuration, and administration

Performance

• High-performance fully distributed architecture
  Delivers up to 30.7 Tb/s switching capacity and 19.2 Bpps throughput with nonblocking wirespeed performance
• High-density 1/10/40 and 100GbE interface connectivity
  Offers up to 16 interface module slots to scale up to 768 1GbE/10GbE, 384 40GbE ports, and 64 100GbE ports
• Distributed scalable fabric architecture
  Offers up to six fabric modules to deliver more than 2 Tb per slot bandwidth

Data center optimized

• Scalable Layer 2 fabrics
  Builds flexible, resilient, and scalable Layer 2 fabrics with TRILL and HP IRF
• Edge Virtual Bridging (EVB) with Virtual Ethernet Port Aggregator (VEPA)
  Provides connectivity into the virtualization-ready data center environment
• Data Center Bridging (DCB) protocols
  Provides support for IEEE 802.1Qaz Data Center Bridging Exchange (DCBX), Enhanced Transmission Selection (ETS), and IEEE 802.1Qbb Priority Flow Control (PFC) for converged fabrics
• Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) features
  Deliver support for FCoE, including expansion, fabric, trunk VF and N ports, and aggregation of E-port and N-port virtualization
• Front-to-back airflow design
  Accommodates deployment in data centers utilizing hot-cold deliver support for FCoE, including expansion, fabric, trunk VF and N ports, and aggregation of E-port and N-port virtualization

Resiliency and high availability

• Intelligent Resilient Framework (IRF)
  Creates virtual resilient switching fabrics, where two or more switches perform as a single L2 switch and L3 router; switches do not have to be co-located and can be part of a disaster-recovery system; servers or switches can be attached using standard LACP for automatic load balancing and high availability; can eliminate the need for complex protocols like Spanning Tree Protocol, Equal-Cost Multipath (ECMP), or VRRP, thereby simplifying network operation
• Redundant/load-sharing fabrics, management, fan assemblies, and power supplies Increase total performance and power availability while providing hitless, stateful failover
• Hot-swappable modules
  Allows replacement of modules without any impact on other modules
• Graceful restart
  Allows routers to indicate to others their capability to maintain a routing table during a temporary shutdown, which significantly reduces convergence times upon recovery; supports OSPF, BGP, and IS-IS
• Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP)
  Allows groups of two routers to dynamically back each other up to create highly available routed environments
• Device Link Detection Protocol (DLDP)
  Monitors link connectivity and shuts down ports at both ends if unidirectional traffic is detected, preventing loops in STP-based networks
• Hitless patch upgrades
  Allows patches and new service features to be installed without restarting the equipment, increasing network uptime and facilitating maintenance
• IEEE 802.3ad Link Aggregation Control Protocol (LACP)
  Supports up to 1024 trunk groups and up to 16 members per trunk; supports static or dynamic groups and a user-selectable hashing algorithm
• Passive design system
  Delivers increased system reliability as the backplane has no active components
• Ultrafast protocol convergence (subsecond) with standard-based failure detection— Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD)
  Enables link connectivity Monitoring and reduces network convergence time for RIP, OSPF, BGP, IS-IS, VRRP, MPLS, and IRF

Layer 2 switching

• VLAN
  Supports up to 4,094 port-based or IEEE 802.1Q-based VLANs
• Bridge Protocol Data Unit (BPDU) tunneling
  Transmits Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) BPDUs transparently, allowing correct tree calculations across service providers, WANs, or MANs
• Port mirroring
  Duplicates port traffic (ingress and egress) to a local or remote monitoring port; supports four mirroring groups, with an unlimited number of ports per group
• Port isolation
  Increases security by isolating ports within a VLAN while still allowing them to communicate with other VLANs
• Internet Group Management Protocol (IGMP) and Multicast Listener Discovery (MLD) protocol snooping
  Controls and manages the flooding of multicast packets in a Layer 2 network
• STP
  Supports standard IEEE 802.1D STP, IEEE 802.1w Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP) for faster convergence, and IEEE 802.1s Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol (MSTP)
• IEEE 802.1ad QinQ and selective QinQ
  Increase the scalability of an Ethernet network by providing a hierarchical structure; connect multiple LANs on a high-speed campus or metro network

Layer 3 routing

• Open shortest path first (OSPF)
  Delivers faster convergence; uses this link-state routing Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP), which supports ECMP, NSSA, and MD5 authentication for increased security and graceful restart for faster failure recovery
• Intermediate system to intermediate system (IS-IS)
  Uses a path vector IGP, which is defined by the ISO organization for IS-IS routing and extended by IETF RFC 1195 to operate in both TCP/IP and the OSI reference model (Integrated IS-IS)
• Border Gateway Protocol 4 (BGP-4)
  Delivers an implementation of the Exterior Gateway Protocol (EGP) utilizing path vectors; uses TCP for enhanced reliability for the route discovery process; reduces bandwidth consumption by advertising only incremental updates; supports extensive policies for increased flexibility; scales to very large networks
• Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)
  Uses BGP to advertise routes across Label Switched Paths (LSPs), but uses simple labels to forward packets from any Layer 2 or Layer 3 protocol, which reduces complexity and increases performance; supports graceful restart for reduced failure impact; supports LSP tunneling and multilevel stacks
• Dual IP stack
  Maintains separate stacks for IPv4 and IPv6 to ease the transition from an IPv4-only network to an IPv6-only network design
• Equal-Cost Multipath (ECMP)
  Enables multiple equal-cost links in a routing environment to increase link redundancy and scale bandwidth
• Policy-based routing
  Makes routing decisions based on policies set by the network administrator
• Static IPv4 routing
  Provides simple manually configured IPv4 routing
• Routing Information Protocol (RIP)
  Uses a distance vector algorithm with UDP packets for route determination; supports RIPv1 and RIPv2 routing; includes loop protection
• IP performance optimization
  Provides a set of tools to improve the performance of IPv4 networks; includes directed broadcasts, customization of TCP parameters, support of ICNP error packets, and extensive display capabilities
• Unicast Reverse Path Forwarding (uRPF)
  Limits erroneous or malicious traffic in accordance with RFC 3074
• Static IPv6 routing
  Provides simple manually configured IPv6 routing
• Routing Information Protocol next generation (RIPng)
  Extends RIPv2 to support IPv6 addressing
• OSPFv3
  Provides OSPF support for IPv6
• IS-IS for IPv6
  Extends IS-IS to support IPv6 addressing
• BGP+
  Extends BGP-4 to support Multiprotocol BGP (MBGP), including support for IPv6 addressing
• MPLS Layer 3 VPN
  Allows Layer 3 VPNs across a provider network; uses MP-BGP to establish private routes for increased security; supports RFC 2547bis multiple autonomous system VPNs for added flexibility
• MPLS Layer 2 VPN
  Establishes simple Layer 2 point-to-point VPNs across a provider network using only MPLS Label Distribution Protocol (LDP); requires no routing and therefore decreases complexity, increases performance, and allows VPNs of non-routable protocols; uses no routing information for increased security; supports Circuit Cross Connect (CCC), Static Virtual Circuits (SVCs), Martini draft, and Kompella-draft technologies
• Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS)
  Establishes point-to-multipoint Layer 2 VPNs across a provider network
• IPv6 tunneling
  Provides an important element for the transition from IPv4 to IPv6; allows IPv6 packets to traverse IPv4-only networks by encapsulating the IPv6 packet into a standard IPv4 packet; supports manually configured, 6to4, Intra-Site Automatic Tunnel Addressing Protocol (ISATAP) tunnels, and IPv6 on VPN to Provider Edge (6VPE) router tunnel

Quality of Service (QoS)

• IEEE 802.1p prioritization
  Delivers data to devices based on the priority and type of traffic
• Flexible classification
  Creates traffic classes based on access control lists (ACLs), IEEE 802.1p precedence, IP, and DSCP or Type of Service (ToS) precedence; supports filter, redirect, mirror, remark, and logging
• Bandwidth shaping
  ––Port-based rate limiting
  Provides per-port ingress-/egress-enforced increased bandwidth
  ––Classifier-based rate limiting
  Uses an ACL to enforce increased bandwidth for ingress traffic on each port
  ––Reduced bandwidth
  Provides per-port, per-queue egress-based reduced bandwidth
• Broad QoS feature set
  Provides support for Strict Priority Queuing (SP), Weighted Fair Queuing (WFQ), Weighted Deficit Round Robin (WDRR), SP+WDRR together, configurable buffers, Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN), and Weighted Random Early Detection (WRED)
• Traffic policing
  Supports Committed Access Rate (CAR) and line rate

Layer 3 services

• Address Resolution Protocol (ARP)
  Determines the MAC address of another IP host in the same subnet; supports static ARPs;
  gratuitous ARP allows detection of duplicate IP addresses; proxy ARP allows normal ARP
  operation between subnets or when subnets are separated by a Layer 2 network
  
• User Datagram Protocol (UDP) helper
  Redirects UDP broadcasts to specific IP subnets to prevent server spoofing
• Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)
  Simplifies the management of large IP networks and supports client and server; DHCP Relay enables DHCP operation across subnets Management
• Management interface control
  Enables or disables each of the following interfaces depending on security preferences: console port, telnet port, or reset button
• Industry-standard CLI with a hierarchical structure
  Reduces training time and expenses, and increases productivity in multivendor installations
• SNMPv1, v2, and v3
  Provide complete support of SNMP; provide full support of industry-standard Management Information Base (MIB) plus private extensions; SNMPv3 supports increased security using encryption
• sFlow® (RFC 3176)
  Provides scalable ASIC-based wirespeed network monitoring and accounting with no impact on network performance; this allows network operators to gather a variety of sophisticated network statistics and information for capacity planning and real-time network monitoring purposes
• Remote monitoring (RMON)
  Uses standard SNMP to monitor essential network functions; supports events, alarm, history, and statistics group plus a private alarm extension group
• Debug and sampler utility
  Supports ping and traceroute for both IPv4 and IPv6
• Network Time Protocol (NTP)
  Synchronizes timekeeping among distributed time servers and clients; keeps timekeeping consistent among all clock-dependent devices within the network so that the devices can provide diverse applications based on the consistent time
• Network Quality Analyzer (NQA)
  Analyzes network performance and service quality by sending test packets, and provides network performance and service quality parameters such as jitter, TCP, or FTP connection delays and file transfer rates; allows a network manager to determine overall network performance and to diagnose and locate network congestion points or failures
• Information center
  Provides a central repository for system and network information; aggregates all logs, traps, and debugging information generated by the system and maintains them in order of severity; outputs the network information to multiple channels based on user-defined rules
• IEEE 802.1AB Link Layer Discovery Protocol (LLDP)
  Advertises and receives management information from adjacent devices on a network, facilitating easy mapping by network management applications

Connectivity

• Jumbo frames
  Allows high-performance backups and disaster-recovery systems with a maximum frame size of 9K bytes
• Loopback
  Supports internal loopback testing for maintenance purposes and an increase in availability; loopback detection protects against incorrect cabling or network configurations and can be enabled on a per-port or per-VLAN basis for added flexibility
• Ethernet operations, administration and maintenance (OAM)
  Detects data link layer problems that occurred in the “last mile” using the IEEE 802.3ah OAM standard; monitors the status of the link between two devices
• Monitor link
  Collects statistics on performance and errors on physical links, increasing system availability
• Packet storm protection
  Protects against unknown broadcast, unknown multicast, or unicast storms with user-defined thresholds
• Flow control
  Provides back pressure using standard IEEE 802.3x, reducing congestion in heavy traffic situations

Security

• ACL
  Supports powerful ACLs for both IPv4 and IPv6; ACLs are used for filtering traffic to prevent unauthorized users from accessing the network, or for controlling network traffic to save resources; rules can either deny or permit traffic to be forwarded; rules can be based on a Layer 2 header or a Layer 3 protocol header; rules can be set to operate on specific dates or times
• Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS)
  Eases switch security access administration by using a password authentication server
• Terminal Access Controller Access-Control System (TACACS+)
  Delivers an authentication tool using TCP with encryption of the full authentication request, providing additional security
• Secure shell (SSHv2)
  Uses external servers to securely log in to a remote device; with authentication and encryption, it protects against IP spoofing and plain-text password interception; increases the security of Secure FTP (SFTP) transfers
• DHCP snooping
  Helps ensure that DHCP clients receive IP addresses from authorized DHCP servers and maintain a list of DHCP entries for trusted ports; prevents reception of fake IP addresses and reduces ARP attacks, improving security
• IP Source Guard
  Filters packets on a per-port basis, which prevents illegal packets from being forwarded
• ARP attack protection
  Protects against attacks that use a large number of ARP requests, using a host-specific, user-selectable threshold
• Port security
  Allows access only to specified MAC addresses, which can be learned or specified by the administrator

Multicast support

• IGMP
  Utilizes Any-Source Multicast (ASM) or Source-Specific Multicast (SSM) to manage IPv4 multicast networks; supports IGMPv1, v2, and v3
• Protocol Independent Multicast (PIM)
  Defines modes of Internet IPv4 and IPv6 multicasting to allow one-to-many and many-to-many transmission of information; PIM Dense Mode (DM), Sparse Mode (SM), and Source-Specific Mode (SSM) are supported

Warranty and support

• 1-year warranty
  Advance hardware replacement with 10-calendar-day delivery (available in most countries)
• Electronic and telephone support
  Limited electronic and business-hours telephone support is available from HP for the entire warranty period; to reach our support centers.
• Software releases
  To find software for your product, refer to hpe.com for details on the software releases available with your product purchase.

Specifications:

	HP FlexFabric 12916 Switch AC Chassis	HP FlexFabric 12910 Switch AC Chassis
Ports and Accessory slots
Ports	16 I/O module slots Supports a maximum of 768 Gigabit Ethernet ports or 768 1/10GbE ports or 768 1/10GBASE-T ports or 384 40GbE ports or 64 100GbE ports, or a combination 2 MPU (for management modules) slots 6 switch fabric slots	10 I/O module slots Supports a maximum of 480 Gigabit Ethernet ports or 480 1/10GbE ports or 480 1/10GBASE-T ports or 240 40GbE ports or 40 100GbE ports, or a combination 2 MPU (for management modules) slots 6 switch fabric slots
Power supplies	12 power supply slots 1 minimum power supply required (ordered separately)	8 power supply slots 1 minimum power supply required (ordered separately)
Fan Tray	Includes: 1 x JG637A 2 fan tray slots.	Includes: 2 x JG631A 2 fan tray slots
Physical characteristics
Dimensions	17.32(w) x 32.68(d) x 40.08(h) in. (44 x 83 x 101.8 cm) (23U height)	17.32(w) x 32.68(d) x 36.61(h) in. (43.99 x 83 x 92.99 cm) (21U height)
Weight	163.69 lb (74.25 kg) chassis only (no fan tray or power supplies)	187.46 lb (85.03 kg) chassis only (no fan tray or power supplies)
Full configuration weight	570.15 lb (258.62 kg)	474.45 lb (215.21 kg)
Memory and processor	Quad Core MIPS64 @ 1.2 GHz, 1 GB flash, 8 GB DDR2 SDRAM	Quad Core MIPS64 @ 1.2 GHz, 1 GB flash, 8 GB DDR2 SDRAM
Performance
Throughput	19.2 Bpps (64-byte packets)	12 Bpps (64-byte packets)
Switching capacity	30.7 Tb/s	19.2 Tb/s
MAC address table size	262144 entries	262144 entries
Routing table size	524288 entries (IPv4), 131072 entries (IPv6)	524288 entries (IPv4), 131072 entries (IPv6)
Environment
Operating temperature	32°F to 113°F (0°C to 45°C)	32°F to 113°F (0°C to 45°C)
Operating relative humidity	10% to 95%, noncondensing	10% to 95%, noncondensing
Acoustic	Low-speed fan: 60.2 dB, High-speed fan: 86.3 dB	Low-speed fan: 60.2 dB, High-speed fan: 83.9 dB
Electrical characteristics
Frequency	50/60 Hz	50/60 Hz
Voltage	100–120/200–240 VAC	100–120/200–240 VAC
Current	16/60 A	16/60 A
Power output	2000 W	2000 W
Notes	Based on a common power supply of 2,000 W (AC)	Based on a common power supply of 2,000 W (AC)
Certifications
Safety	UL 60950-1; CAN/CSA 22.2 No. 60950-1; IEC 60950-1; EN 60950-1; FDA 21 CFR Subchapter J; AS/NZS 60950-1; RoHS Compliance EN 50581	UL 60950-1; CAN/CSA 22.2 No. 60950-1; IEC 60950-1; EN 60950-1; FDA 21 CFR Subchapter J; AS/NZS 60950-1; RoHS Compliance EN 50581
Emmissions	VCCI Class A; EN 55022 Class A; CISPR 22 Class A; IEC/EN 61000-3-2; IEC/EN 61000-3-3; ICES-003 Class A; AS/NZS CISPR 22 Class A; FCC (CFR 47, Part 15) Class A; ETSI EN 300 386	VCCI Class A; EN 55022 Class A; CISPR 22 Class A; IEC/EN 61000-3-2; IEC/EN 61000-3-3; ICES-003 Class A; AS/NZS CISPR 22 Class A; FCC (CFR 47, Part 15) Class A; ETSI EN 300 386
Services	Refer to the HP website at hpe.com for details on the service-level descriptions and product numbers. For details about services and response times in your area, please contact your local HP sales office.
Management	IMC—Intelligent Management Center; command-line interface; out-of-band management (serial RS-232C); SNMP Manager; Telnet; terminal interface (serial RS-232C); modem interface; IEEE 802.3 Ethernet MIB; Ethernet Interface MIB	IMC—Intelligent Management Center; command-line interface; out-of-band management (serial RS-232C); SNMP Manager; Telnet; terminal interface (serial RS-232C); modem interface; IEEE 802.3 Ethernet MIB; Ethernet Interface MIB
Standards and Protocols (applies to all products in series)
Denial of service protection	Automatic filtering of well-known denial-of-service packets CPU DoS Protection Rate Limiting by ACLs
Device management	RFC 1157 SNMPv1/v2c RFC 1305 NTPv3 RFC 1902 (SNMPv2) RFC 2579 (SMIv2 Text Conventions) RFC 2580 (SMIv2 Conformance) RFC 2819 (RMON groups Alarm, Event) History and Statistics only) HTTP, SSHv1, and Telnet Multiple Configuration Files Multiple Software Images SSHv1/SSHv2 Secure Shell TACACS/TACACS+ Web UI

Documentation:

Download the HP FlexFabric 12900 Switch Series Datasheet (PDF).