Although the Sphereon 4500 posted some good full-mesh latency test results, it came in last on the standard port-to-port latency and latency-under-load tests. We find the throughput results particularly disappointing, since we tested only 16 ports on this switch, rather than the full 24-port complement. While this result might indicate an early firmware problem, it's still a concern. The Sphereon 4500 should perform better than it does. On the latency front, the Sphereon 4500 seemed to perform well only while under load. Industry-standard latency performance and latency-under-load tests were not exactly what we expected either. However, the Sphereon 4500 performed very well on the full-mesh latency tests. We can only surmise that because McData's single chip design is newest, the speed of the RAM used for buffer credits must be superior to that of QLogic or Brocade. Superior RAM speed would have a positive effect on latency scores.
The Sphereon 4500 comes with SANpilot, a browser-based configuration- and fabric-management utility. SANpilot is the easiest configuration utility to use, though it has fewer features than Brocade's browser-based software. Unlike the others, this switch features nondisruptive code load, called HotCAT, a feature that's normally reserved for director-class switches. This handy feature lets new code be loaded to the switch and activated without disrupting traffic passing through the switch.
McData sells the Sphereon 4500 through its channel partners and offers a 13-month warranty on the switch. We had to ask: Why 13 months? McData said it was a customer courtesy, as most people end up having the switch sitting for a month before implementation. Nice. Almost nice enough to make up for the stupid port-numbering trick.
Because this article was written so close to the release date for the Sphereon 4500, we were unable to secure street prices for the switch. We estimate street prices to be 10 percent to 20 percent less than list. The list price, $15,000 for the 16-port version, includes optics, and the list price for the 24-port activated version of the Sphereon 2500 is a couple of thousand less than the street price of the 16-port Brocade SilkWorm 3800. McData offers an incentive to purchase the Sphereon 4500 at the 24-port activated price of $21,695 (list). It's far cheaper to purchase the ports up front, as each eight-port upgrade sells for $9,959.
Sphereon 4500 Fabric Switch, $21,695 fully populated including optics, McData Corp., (800) 545-5773, (303) 460-9200. www.mcdata.com
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