What's the biggest fattest LAN switch ?
This isn't a trick question, but one with a lot of tricky answers depending on how you define "big" and "fast."
Ethernet switch vendors such as 3Com, Force10, Cisco, Extreme, Foundry and HP ProCurve constantly tussle with claims of the highest performance, density and latency. But keep in mind that what's available right now from such vendors is three-year-old technology, on average. Meanwhile, a host of hungry start-ups such as Raptor Networks and Woven Systems have a new take on how to build the "biggest" Ethernet switch. Their approach diverges from single big-iron chassis, and more resembles clustered supercomputing, or InfiniBand networking topologies
How fast Ethernet can go is bound by the current 802.3ae standard — 10Gbps — so no single port is speedier than that, supposedly. Other ways to measure switch heftiness are by the bandwidth of the switch fabric and the density of ports that the chassis or box supports. Then there's the performance of the ports themselves. Latency — how long a switch holds onto a packet — are factors in switch performance, as well as jitter, which is a measure of the amount of variance of latency.
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Posted at 09:58AM Nov 07, 2006 by Simon Bullen in Networking | Comments[0]
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