Social networking giant Facebook is once again making a buzz in the tech community. A buzz that could end up hurting the computer network industry.

Facebook, on Tuesday, revealed its newest technological innovation. Simply called Backpack, the technology is considered as a second-generation computer switch and the successor to the 6-Pack which was released last year and had directly challenged industry leaders such as Cisco and Juniper, according to Business Insider.

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What is even more shocking about Facebook's new Backpack technology is that the company will be releasing it completely for free. A decision that could put massive business tension to commercial networking companies.

The 6-Pack was already an impressive piece of technology that is capable of streaming 40G of data around a data center. With Backpack, Facebook is essentially creating a spectrum of its own as the switch is capable of handling up to 100G of data. The switch is able to achieve this by using fiber optics in moving data instead of the traditional and more limited choice of copper wires.

According to Fortune, Facebook tested the new Backpack technology in the company's data center located in Altoona, Iowa.

Backpack is expected to work well with Facebook's other switch called Wedge 100. The Wedge 100 is what network experts will call a "top of rack" switch, and it connect a rack of servers to the network. The Backpack can connect all Wedge 100 switches together creating a "network fabric."

Facebook is planning to turn over the newly developed technology to Open Compute Project. OCT will then develop an open source hardware that engineers can use to create hardware design and openly share it together. Aside from open sourcing the hardware design, Facebook also took the step of freely distributing the software that runs the switch.

TagsFacebook, computer network, facebook networking, facebook backpack, backpack, facebook wedge