Anritsu switches offer Layer 3 punch

MORGAN HILL, CALIF. - With its new Layer 3 switches boasting a speed twice that of Gigabit Ethernet, Anritsu believes it has far surpassed the offerings of competitors looking to outfit campus metropolitan area networks.

The company last week announced its line of MultiFlow 5000 switches. What makes these switches different from the scores of other Layer 3 switches on the market is their ability to forward Ethernet frames at OC-48, or 2.5G bit/sec, rates over SONET-based fiber. This is more than twice the speed of Gigabit Ethernet.

Anritsu's MultiFlow 5000s can also extend Ethernet to 50 kilometers over these SONET links, which is 10 times the maximum distance of Gigabit Ethernet over single-mode fiber.

That's not to say Anritsu is excluding Gigabit Ethernet from the MultiFlow 5000 lineup; the new switches will also scale from two to 16 Gigabit Ethernet ports, Anritsu says.

The ability to support standard-sized Ethernet frames over OC-48 SONET links is an innovation Anritsu calls OC-48 Network Extension (ONE) technology.

ONE, coupled with OC-3 ATM and V.35 T-1 WAN interfaces, gives MultiFlow 5000 users a more cost-effective, higher-performance alternative to software-based routers for enterprise campus connectivity, Anritsu says.

Market leaders Cisco, 3Com, Cabletron and Nortel Networks are also supporting or have plans to support WAN interfaces on their Layer 3 offerings. But Anritsu may be the first to support Ethernet at OC-48 rates.

"[Anritsu] really took a leap there," says Sam Alunni, president of enterprise research at Sterling Research in Sterling, Mass. "This idea of actually using OC-48 and going a step further and using SONET" is an interesting technology.

It remains to be seen, though, if competitors will follow suit, given that other vendors are already offering IP packet-over-SONET capabilities, Alunni says.

The MultiFlow switches also interface to metro and long-haul wave division multiplexing (WDM) equipment, which will let users link enterprise facilities across the country. Nortel and 3Com have announced plans to support WDM on their high-end backbone switches.

Two chassis-based units and two rack-mountable stand-alone units comprise the MultiFlow 5000 line.

The two chassis-based units feature four- and eight-slot enclosures housing eight Gigabit Ethernet or 64 Fast Ethernet ports; or 16 Gigabit Ethernet or 128 Fast Ethernet ports, respectively.

Chassis units offer hardware redundancy, with additional slots reserved for redundant management and switching modules, power supplies and cooling fans. WAN modules for the chassis offerings support two ATM OC-3 ports or four T-1 ports.

One of the stand-alone units sports 32 Fast Ethernet and two Gigabit Ethernet fixed ports, plus an expansion slot for additional Fast Ethernet or WAN interfaces. WAN expansion modules for the stand-alone units include a single OC-3 or two T-1s.

The other stand-alone device features 24 Fast Ethernet and two Gigabit Ethernet ports and no expansion slot.

The MultiFlow 5000s forward traffic at wire speed based on Layer 2, 3 and 4 information, such as MAC addresses, IP addresses and TCP/UDP port numbers. They also provide load balancing, filtering and routing of IPX and AppleTalk, as well as IP.

Routing protocols include RIP and OSPF, plus standard multicasting protocols.

The switches support four levels of traffic priority, and feature the 802.1p and Differentiated Services standards and Weighted Fair Queuing algorithm for quality of service.

The switches are priced from $499 to $599 per Fast Ethernet port, and from $3,992 to $4,789 per Gigabit Ethernet port. They will be available in September.

Anritsu: www.global.anritsu. com/products/infosys/mf5000spec.html