Cisco to pop yet another Gigabit Ethernet switch

SAN JOSE - Cisco next week will unveil a Gigabit Ethernet switch for users who need to aggregate high-speed wiring closet and server farm links but can't afford a modular backbone switch to do so.

The Catalyst 4912G is a 12-port Gigabit Ethernet switch and the first product in the Catalyst 4900 series, a new line of switches from Cisco.

The 4912G is targeted at users who need to aggregate multiple Layer 2 Gigabit Ethernet links, but who need to do so at a lower entry cost than Cisco can offer with the existing Catalyst 4000 line of modular Gigabit Ethernet/Fast Ethernet switches.

The 4912G is also distinguished from the Catalyst 6000 and Catalyst 8500 in that it is Layer 2-only, whereas the latter two are modular routing switches that also support 10M bit/sec and Fast Ethernet, as well as ATM.

Users want more

Gigabit Ethernet aggregation devices are in vogue, analysts say, given that users are putting more and more 10/ 100 ports at desktops and in wiring closets. And they are attaching these workgroups to dedicated servers via Gigabit Ethernet.

"With my setup, I've got one spot where I need to do some aggregation, and it looks pretty kick-ass for that," says Cisco user Kelly Carpenter, systems manager at Washington University's Genome Sequencing Research Center in St. Louis. "For what it's designed for, that looks pretty damn nice."

Cisco declined to comment on the 4912G.

According to sources, the new device features 24G bit/ sec of nonblocking switch capacity and wire-speed performance on all ports.

Overall performance is 18 million packet/sec, they say.

The 4912G supports 16,000 media access control addresses and 1,024 virtual LANs.

The switch is software-compatible with Cisco's widely installed Catalyst 5000 switches. This means users should realize consistent management, security, quality-of-service and scalability features between the two.

Scalability includes support for Cisco's Gigabit EtherChannel technology, which allows users to combine four Gigabit Ethernet links into a virtual 4G bit/sec full-duplex pipe.

The switch supports 1000Base-SX and 1000Base-LX fiber Gigabit Interface Converter (GBIC) interfaces for short- and long-distance requirements.

GBICs can be physically interchanged should distance requirements change.

The 4912G also features redundant, hot-swappable external power supplies.

The 4912G will face its stiffest competition from 3Com's CoreBuilder 9400, a Layer 2 Gigabit Ethernet switch that features 12 fixed-configuration ports and 12 modular ports.

The 4912G is priced starting at $9,995. GBICs are priced near $500 for 1000Base-SX, which would bring the starting per-port price of a 4912G to less than $1,350.

The switch will be available in March.

Cisco: (408) 526-4000