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Web Links
Running the Numbers (InformationWeek, Sept. 30, 2002)
Big Fat Bandwidth (Network Computing, June 24, 2002) |
Foundry Networks BigIron
The Foundry switch also came with redundant CPU cards and slots for seven additional cards. Our test box included two single-port, 10-gigabit 802.3ae cards as well as a Gigabit Ethernet card. The Foundry platform uses an IOS-like CLI, which was very familiar and made configuration of the BigIron easy. We found, however, that the device could not give us statistics on access lists without our logging them to a syslog server. We didn't turn on this feature because it would have compromised performance in our testing.
The Foundry box had the best variety of 10 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces. Along with the Long Range (1310nm) interface, which we required for our test, BigIron supports the Short Range and Extended Range LAN interfaces. Extreme's device supports only the Long Range Interfaces but the company says it plans to add support for the others. Interestingly, neither vendor supports the 802.3ae WAN interfaces, which are designed for providing a more economical transition to Sonet networks.
Foundry BigIron, $59,995. Foundry Networks, (408) 586-1700. www.foundrynetworks.com
Peter Morrissey is full-time faculty member of Syracuse University's School of INformation Studies, and a contributing editor and columinist for Network Computing. Write to him at [email protected].
Those of you who slaver over the biggest and baddest in networking gear have likely been keeping an eye on the 10 Gigabit Ethernet standard. Now that the spec is final, we decided to throw packets at 10 Gigabit boxes to see how they'd perform. We invited Alcatel, Cisco Systems, Enterasys Networks, Extreme Networks, Force10 Networks, Foundry Networks, Hewlett-Packard Co. and Nortel Networks to participate in our tests, but when push came to shove, only Extreme and Foundry came through with products
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