Enterprise High Capacity Switch Routers

Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch 9000 Family
Alcatel-Lucent offers viable, but not market- leading, products with the OmniSwitch 9000 series of switches. Advanced management and security features, combined with aggressive pricing, keep this product in front of customers and competitive. (4/22/2009)
| Client Access | Purchase Advisor Online: Price $495 |

Cisco Catalyst 6500-E
The Catalyst 6500 still the leader in high capacity switches, offering investment protection, port diversity and service modules for all needs. It’s no longer the performance king, but remains the platform of choice for many. (7/20/2010)
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Enterasys S-Series
The Enterasys S-Series is competitive in the data center market with good performance, density and policy features and an efficient design, but lacks oversubscribed 10GbE ports. (7/20/2010)
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Extreme Networks BlackDiamond 8800 Series (8900 Modules)
The Extreme BlackDiamond 8800 Series with 8900 modules is designed for large data center environment for Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet, good software features and IPv6 support. (7/20/2010)
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Force10 Terascale E-Series 1200
Force10 remains a key competitor in high end data center switches with its TeraScale product. While this product is no longer a performance leader, it remains a strong competitor, especially when coupled with the new Force10 ExaScale offering. (4/9/2009)
| Client Access | Purchase Advisor Online: Price $495 |

Hewlett Packard HP A12500 Switch Series
The HP A12500 Switch Series (formerly H3C S12500) data center modular switch offers impressive performance and density as well as data center software features, but some customers are still nervous about HP’s product plans since the close of the 3Com acquisition. (8/5/2010)
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Juniper Networks EX8200 line
The Juniper EX8200 line offers excellent port density and performance, as well as a carrier-grade operating system in Junos, but it has a limited line card selection with no oversubscribed 10GbE ports. (7/20/2010)
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Top

• Current Analysis Perspective
• Product Strengths & Weaknesses
• Product Point and Counterpoint
• Product Buying Criteria
• Product Metrics

• Performance
  • Performance criteria measures the aggregate capacity of the switch fabric, switching throughput, switch latency, and other factors which contribute to the overall speed and capacity of the device.
• Scalability
  • Scalability criteria measures the ability of the solution to grow with the needs of the enterprise, encompassing chassis size, blade/port density, and how upgradeable the overall solution is.
• Management/Ease of Use
  • Management and Ease of Use criteria identify hardware and/or software features that differentiate the administration, maintenance, and reliability characteristics of this product.
• Total Cost Of Ownership
  • Total Cost of Ownership takes into consideration device pricing, warranty, and service pricing/offerings, as well as soft costs such as costs associated with deploying a specific product or training staff to use a significantly different interface.

• Physical Characteristics
  • Device Class
  • Primary Target Market
• Qos Features
  • Total # of Transmit Queues per Port
  • Total # of Receive Queues per Port
  • One or More Strict Priority Queues
  • Rate Limiting Support
  • Rate Limiting Granularity
  • Classify by IP DSCP/TOS
  • Write/re-write IP DSCP/TOS
• Protocol Support
  • 802.1w Fast Spanning Tree
  • 802.1s per VLAN Spanning Tree
  • 802.3ad Trunking
  • 802.1x User Authentication
  • Network Login
  • IGMP Snooping
  • IP Routing
  • IP Routing Protocols
• Interface Support
  • 10/100Base-T
  • 10/100Base-T with 802.3af
  • 100Base-FX
  • 10/100/1000Base-T
  • 10/100/1000Base-T with 802.3af
  • 1000Base-X (GBIC or SFP)
  • 10G - fixed optics
  • 10G - XENPAC
  • 10G - XFP
  • 10G-Copper
  • Other (specify type and port count)
  • Special Modules (non-line-cards)
• Fixed Switch: High Availability
  • Redundant Power Supplies
  • Non-Stop Code Upgrade
• Fixed Switch: Performance
  • Aggregate Switch Throughput
  • Forwarding Rate
  • Non-Blocking Wire-speed
  • Switch Forwarding Latency
• Fixed Switch: Pricing
  • Switch Price
  • Expansion Module Pricing
• Chassis: Specific Characteristics
  • Total # of Slots in Chassis
  • Reserved Slots
• Chassis: Fabric Module
  • Fabric Type
  • Fabric Location
  • Fabric Redundancy
• Chassis: High Availability
  • Hot-Swap Fan Trays
  • Hot-Swap Line Cards
  • Hot-Swap Management Module
  • Hot-Swap Fabric Module
  • Hot-Swap Power Supplies
  • Hot-Swap Other
  • Minimum # of Power Supplies
  • Maximum # of Power Supplies
  • Power Supply Load Distribution
  • Non-Stop Code Upgrade
• Chassis: Performance
  • Backplane Size
  • Forwarding Rate
  • Switch Forwarding Latency
• Chassis: Pricing
  • Bare Chassis Configuration
  • 10/100/1000Base-T Line Card Price
  • 1000Base-X GBIC/SFP Line Card Price
  • 10 Gig XENPAC Line Card Price
  • 10 Gig XFP Line Card Price
  • 10 Gig Copper Line Card Price
• Support
  • Standard Warranty
  • Enterprise Maintenance Contract