Network Computing - Back Issues |
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Network Computing - Back Issues |
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right route for switchesFast ethernet switches and router accelerators are just two of the latest
developments looking to find a home on your LAN. Here, Geoff Marshall takes a look at the
products and innovations that are pushing the switches and router market forward
Sometimes
it seems that everything in the network LAN switch technology industry has to be centred
around how to make things even bigger, more complicated and more expensive. Large
rack-mounted modular switches with 128 ports, Layer 3 functionality, ATM and Gigabit
support, with web-based diagnostic management software, etc. But bigger is not always
better. When we live in a world where computer technological developments are shrinking
the size of cellular phones, portable laptops and even personal stereos, surely simplicity
is what it should all be about? The legacy of ATM This is in part the case history of switched ATM, a story of highly expensive implementation projects which have had their fair share of technical problems. ATM of course does have a place in implementing super fast LAN/WANs, but what seems to be increasingly the case is that companies are sticking to implementing Fast Ethernet switched LANs and even Gigabit networks. Gigabit would be more widespread were it not for the fact that some organisations are looking to the bad experiences that others have had with ATM and are being prudent. It is no use trying to be on the bleeding edge of technology now if it causes problems in the long term. Gigabit switches are certainly a lot more affordable now. The Yankee Group has estimated that by 2002 the European Gigabit switch market will be worth $2.2Bn in sales. We spoke to Jamie Kelley, D-Link's Marketing Manager for UK and Eire, "D-Link's approach to Gigabit has, as with all its switches, been to manufacture mid-range fixed switches at a price/performance ratio that the SME is looking for. In the case of modular switches, of which there are now several, these can be purchased with a Gigabit module at the time of purchase or bought separately later and fitted simply, whilst keeping a number of ports as 10/100Mbps. Simplicity with good functionality and some future flexibility is what in general 90% of businesses are looking for when upgrading their LAN." Switched Ethernet versus 100 Mbps Ethernet The 7th Network Industry Survey, commissioned by Black Box at the end of June '99, reveals that despite a significant increase in the installed base of Switched Ethernet (64% today; September 1997: 41%), it has now been overtaken by 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet (68% today; September 1997: 38%). "This lead is set to increase over the next 12 months as a further 7% of organisations expect to install 100 Mbps Ethernet compared to just 2% that expect to install Switched Ethernet," comments Patrick Hudgell, Technical Marketing Director at Black Box. Although the survey shows that Switched Ethernet is still preferred in large organisations (73%) compared to medium (56%) and small (38%), 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet has almost caught up in large organisations (69%) and has a substantial lead in the medium (66%) sector (small 38%). The computing (77%) and public (72%) sectors are the leading proponents of these two technologies. Summarising the Black Box survey: 100 Mbps Ethernet has overtaken Switched Ethernet (68% v 64%) with a further 7% expecting to install 100 Mbps Ethernet within the next 12 months compared to only 2% for Switched Ethernet. Use of Gigabit Ethernet has quadrupled from a very small base (now 8%) but 12% are planning to install in the next 12 months, with 7% currently evaluating. Network Peripherals Inc (NPI) NPI has recently reinvented itself by launching its new family of NuWave Architecture Gigabit Ethernet switches in April this year. As well as NPI's own range of fully managed, wire-speed, non-blocking, stackable or standalone Fast Ethernet and Gigabit switches, the technology is available to OEMs. Each can support up to 64 Gbps of bandwidth, as well as from 24 to 120 ports, operating at Layers 2 and 3, with future plans for Layer 4 without requiring significant new hardware or software engineering. NuWave Architecture switches route IP packets at wire speeds and support Quality of Service (QoS) traffic classes, as well as optional wide-area networking (WAN) interfaces. Jerry McDowell, VP of Marketing for NPI, has strong views as to the actual workability of many vendors QoS claims: "Many are struggling with the limitation of their switches to provide QoS. Other vendors have got the wrong approach - the user is the only person who can define the behaviour of the network to support their applications - not the network manager. Most hardware vendors, if honest, will say that they are only interested in selling switches - network management is given away free to customers, as you can't sell a switch without it. NPI is of the view that policy management has to provide network services to the enterprise in the same way as the WAN service provider offers service through its OSS." McDowell went on to say, "The only effective way to have this carried out is by cooperation and development with third party independent software suppliers who can and do develop 'open' interfaces and include mediation software to effect the interoperability of inherently different management applications and services. The likely structure will be finite web-enabled management of the edge switches with interfaces via policy applications and servers that will tightly integrate, via LDAP, to directory services like NDS and ADS.” Ericsson’s new router accelerators Ericsson announced last month its Zambezi product line, a family of router accelerators that increases the performance of campus backbone routers tenfold. Ericsson's Zambezi Router Accelerators, AXC 800 and AXC 1600, are cost-effective, plug-and-play solutions that require no configuration and can be installed in an existing network in less than 10 minutes. They eliminate performance bottlenecks in campus or data centre environments without the cost and inconvenience of upgrading installed routers. Available in 8- and 16-port models, Zambezi AXC 800 and AXC 1600 provide wire-speed routing and switching on each 100Mbps Ethernet port. The router accelerator offloads routing of all LAN IP traffic from existing backbone routers, easing network congestion and improving LAN and WAN performance. In addition, Zambezi's autoconfiguration capabilities eliminate the need to take down the network during router reconfiguration. With the AXC 800/1600 handling the LAN traffic, the backbone router is free to forward all WAN traffic without modification or delay, making traffic management more efficient. FlowWise Router Accelerator FlowWise has further refined the auto-configuration of its router accelerators to the extent that they learn and configure themselves automatically by watching what the existing router does. This makes them a no-risk enhancement because there’s no investment in configuring both accelerator and existing router, and it can be removed just as quickly as it was installed in the unlikely event that you don't like it! Bruce Hartrup of Network Critical (a distributor of FlowWise products) says, "Every FlowWise router accelerator that we install on a short-term trial basis for potential customers sells itself. At the end of the trial period, customers are so reluctant to part with it that they raise a purchase order straight away." OvisLink The Gigabit Ethernet backbone switch manufactured by OvisLink and available from Pine Technology, is specifically designed for the SME market, providing flexibility of use and value for money. The OvisLink Ether-GFSHG, with auto-sensed full/half duplex ports, provides a high-capacity Gigabit connection for backbone links. The switch allows for faster data transfer by combining high performance at a cost-effective rate when upgrading networks from Fast Ethernet to Gigabit speed Ethernet. It is suitable for both backbone and server interface connections. "Network backbone technology and server interface connections are becoming more mature and indispensable in the market," says Marnie Sutton, vice president of sales, marketing and procurement at Pine Technology. "The Gigabit switch is putting SMEs in touch with speedier communication to remain competitive with the larger corporates." The OvisLink Ether-GFSHG switch is now available from Pine Technology at £370 + VAT (dealer price). Corega In Japan Corega K.K. is a fast growing company, thriving in the recession by selling LAN hardware at very low prices directly through retail computer shops, catalogue houses and via Internet sales. Established near the end of 1996, Corega's growth in less than 3 years has resulted in sales exceeding a million US Dollars per month. Following on from its success in Japan, the European subsidiary Corega.com plc has opened at Grove Technology Park, Oxfordshire, UK. The product range offered in the UK is targeted at the SOHO market, linking a handful of PCs using Ethernet and Fast Ethernet hardware. A range of PCI, PCMCIA and Cardbus LAN adapters comes with Plug-and-Play software, which is the simplest to install that we have encountered. According to Ron Davis, CEO of Corega.com plc, "Corega's dual-speed hubs and switches are exceptionally compact and very low cost, without sacrificing quality because reliability has to the meet stringent demands of Japanese customers. Another effect of Japanese-driven engineering is that cost reduction has to be built into every product which means that costs have been driven down by some 80% over 4 years. An 8-Port Fast Ethernet Switch is already retailing at around 18% of the cost of an Ethernet transceiver which I used to sell in 1981. This has changed the entire economics of maintenance and support by making LAN hardware into consumables." IP vs ATM Switching To explore the arguments regarding IP vs ATM and the integration of the two technologies, we interviewed Chris Williams, Director of Marketing at General Datacom: Why integrate IP and ATM? “ATM is the technology of choice for carrier networks and at some point it is likely that Internet or IP traffic will be converted to ATM to be switched over the carrier backbone.” What are the benefits of integrating IP Routing and ATM Switching? “The real benefits emerge when QoS is required for time-critical multi-media applications. As the web becomes more multimedia centric and voice/video over IP becomes established then ATM will bring real benefits. What does this hold for the future? “IP standards are evolving that emulate much of the work that has been done in the ATM forum and ITU-T to bring QoS to the packet world. RSVP is one such attempt. There are two views about what the future hold 5 years out. One view is that WDM technology will offer unlimited bandwidth that will allow IP to attain the necessary QoS and that ATM will eventually become redundant. Another view is that IP and ATM will converge over the next few years and standards will evolve to address the needs of multi-media switched services. What does ATM provide for IP? “A Level 2 switched platform with QoS. ATM adds overhead to the processing and information.” What does IP provide ATM? “IP is the dominant Internet protocol. ATM is one alternative platform for transport of IP traffic.” Surely the easy answer would be MPOA for transporting IP over ATM? Why hasn't this really picked up? “MPOA is not really scaleable beyond campus style networks or intranets. It adds Level 3 intelligence to LANE and is really geared more to large LANs than WANs.” What advantages does integrating IP and ATM have over such solutions? “The network architecture that is drawing more and more support is a topology based architecture where the intelligence is distributed to the edge of the network and the centre of the network behaves more as a switch. This means that less processing will be required by the core network and in turn this should increase switching capacity and throughput. In an ATM scenario IP will be converted into cells by edge routers or access devices to be switched efficiently over the ATM core.” How will MPLS affect IP/ATM integration? “Cisco's tag switching and IBM's ARIS were both forerunners of MPLS. MPLS is geared to topology based architectures and switched networks -- these could be IP or ATM switched networks. MPLS is scaleable and together with other QoS efforts in the IP world will further enhance multimedia applications over packet networks. Today ATM networks are the only networks to offer guarantees of service.” What new services will integrated IP:ATM switch solutions bring to service providers? “Guaranteed levels of service to IP users, that is, Voice over IP over ATM. How will this integration affect quality of service? “In the future scenario where IP and ATM converge then IP switched networks will have all the QoS attributes of ATM. One way or another the service providers need to resolve QoS issues to be able to offer more services and flexible tariffing.” What other technologies, new or old, will this benefit and how? “ADSL and many of the emerging DSL services will benefit from an effective and efficient switched infrastructure.” Any other comments you'd like to make or additional information you'd like to supply? “General DataComm has a 15% share of the ATM carrier installed base and has demonstrated MPLS interoperability with Ericsson and Nortel. General DataComm's APEX range of carrier class ATM switches support a wealth of International standards including Voice over AAL2.” |
Chris Williams,
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The new Cornerstone6g from
NPI’s family of NuWave Architecture Gigabit Ethernet Switches
