Building high-speed networks on the cheap

By Phil Hochmuth
Network World, 08/07/00

While the big boys in the network equipment market push advanced features into their gear, some customers are shunning those products and electing to buy high-speed network equipment from smaller switch vendors at sometimes thousands of dollars less.

Despite the proliferation of Layer 3 switches, the need for cheap speed - lower-cost switches that can move large amounts of data - is growing. Vendors in the so-called second tier of the LAN switching market, including Network Peripherals, Allied Telesyn, Asant�, D-Link and Hewlett-Packard are tapping into the demand. These companies offer Layer 2, and even some Layer 3, Gigabit Ethernet switches at per-port prices that are much lower than the current industry average.

According to Stan Schatt, vice president of consultancy Giga Information Group in Cambridge, Mass., some enterprise net customers don't need what's on the cutting edge of network technology.

"Large network vendors keep pushing the envelope by offering more value-added services, such as quality of service, additional security features, and more port density as well as management features," Schatt says. Many smaller vendors have found that there is a market for customers who will pay less for equipment that doesn't a have a bunch of features they don't need.

Government and educational institutions are always on the hunt for less-expensive gear. These customers, Schatt says, are often less interested in paying extra money for advanced features than in getting as much bandwidth as possible for their money.

Taking a pass on advanced features

A survey of 500 users by market research firm IDC in Framingham, Mass., showed that enterprise customers are spending just as much on Layer 2 switches for the backbone as they are on Layer 3. The survey also showed that advanced switch features such as Web caching and Layer 4 switching were not in the plans of more than 60% of the users.

James Mustarde, director of marketing at Allied Telesyn, agrees that there is still a market for devices with lower intelligence and high data throughput. Some of Allied's best-selling products are its stackable, Layer 2, Gigabit Ethernet switches, such as the AT-9006 series of switches.

"Most vendors today are trying to pitch Layer 3 switches at business," Mustarde says. "Many customers in price-sensitive markets don't want to buy Layer 3 if they can get away with it."

The school of cheap speed

Lower-cost Gigabit Ethernet gear works just fine for Curtis Lee, director of technology for the South Pasadena School District in Pasadena, Calif. The Allied Telesyn Layer 2 Fast and Gigabit Ethernet switches he's installed have given his network more bandwidth than he or his staff knows what to do with, he says.

Lee has installed a Gigabit Ethernet backbone, which interconnects three elementary schools, a middle school and a high school. He uses Allied Telesyn's AT-9006LX 12-port Gigabit Ethernet switch at his network data center, and A-T8224 10/100M bit/sec switches in the school wiring closets. Through a deal between the city and a local telephone provider, the school purchased its own multimode fiber lines to connect the schools at high speeds.

When Lee started upgrading the school district years ago from a network of shared hubs and T-1 WAN connections, he purchased Allied Telesyn gear for budgetary reasons.

"The amount of bandwidth we have changes my whole approach as to how I handle the network," Lee says, referring to proposing new applications and services for the school district. "I'm able to suggest things without freaking out the powers that be because there's less of a sticker shock now" associated with the expansion plans for the network.

By going with the $8,000 12-port Allied Telesyn AT-9006LX, Lee says he saved almost $3,000 over a similar Gigabit Ethernet backbone switch from Intel - the 480T - and Extreme Networks' Summit5i switch. Even the eight-port Catalyst 4908 Gigabit Ethernet switch from Cisco costs more than twice as much. Additionally, Lee's AT-8224 wiring closet switches, at $1,200, were about half the price of similar switches from top-tier vendors.

Layer 3 for less

For Mike Norris, digital systems administrator for Besco Graphics in Valley View, Ohio, Network Peripherals had the answers he was looking for in terms of price/performance in a Gigabit Ethernet switch.

Besco Graphics is a prepress graphics production firm for school textbooks. On Besco's network, files that are 900M to 1.5G bytes in size are commonplace. Norris says he chose Network Peripherals' Cornerstone 6G-byte Gigabit Ethernet switch because of its large backplanes (64G bytes), nonblocking, Layer 3 architecture and price of $7,600.

"We were looking for some midrange switches," from the top vendors, Norris says, adding "we didn't get support or resources we wanted from those companies."

Additionally, he says, the price was a key factor, with Cornerstone 6G costing almost 15% less than the similarly configured six-port Summit5i from Extreme.

While less-expensive, high-speed network gear is available from many smaller switch vendors with quality comparable to large switch makers, there are valuable features in large switches many enterprise customers consider a necessity.

"For some companies," Giga's Schatt says, "they need a variety of switches. They need workgroup switches, wiring closet switches and backbone switches, and they want the whole thing from one vendor."

Other technical advantages the large vendors have, Schatt says, are in advanced technologies such as line trunking and link aggregation.

"Another area where you lose out is if you have a lot of switches that need to have aggregated bandwidth," he says. "The big guys have proprietary ways to aggregate flows that you won't get from smaller vendors."