"During the day, you're probably not using 10 Gig to the fullest," he said. "But at night when you're trying to back up the servers, you're going to be hitting it pretty hard, and probably in bursts."

The OmniSwitch 9700 chassis will be available in mid-December; prices range from US$3,995 for a bare chassis to $23,995 fully configured. Also available in mid-December are a 24-port 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet blade at $7,995 and a 2-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet blade (without optics) for $10,495. The larger 9800 chassis and a 24-port PoE (Power over Ethernet) blade will be available in early 2006.