Bay unveils ATM backbone switch family
Based on NEC Netnex devices, new high-capacity boxes support voice and video.
|
|||
 | |||
|
|
|
|||
| |||
|
Bay Networks, Inc. last week rolled out a new line of ATM switches built by NEC Corporation, Inc., and added routing and voice support to its ATM devices.
The new switch line is called the Centillion 1000. It is designed for enterprise network centers requiring high-density 622M bit/sec OC-12 and 155M bit/sec OC-3 links.
The Centillion 1000 line is based on NEC's Netnex ATM switches (NW, Feb. 9, page 37) and is comprised of three modular chassis with 16, eight and four slots.
The 16-slot Centillion 1600 switch has a 10G bit/sec switch fabric supporting up to 64 OC-3 ports and 16 OC-12s. The eight-slot Centillion 1400 and the four-slot Centillion 1200 switches come with 5G bit/sec and 2.5G bit/sec nonblocking switch fabrics, respectively.
The competition
Topping out at 10G bit/sec, however, the Centillion 1000 line appears to fall short of competitive offerings, observers note.
FORE Systems, Inc. is close to unveiling a 40G bit/sec ASX-4000 switch, and Cisco Systems, Inc. has a 20G bit/sec ATM switch on tap under the code name Cougar (NW, July 28, 1997, page 1). Cabletron Systems, Inc.'s SmartSwitch 9000 sports a 75G bit/sec ATM cell switching fabric, the company claims.
Bay will resolve the bandwidth issue toward year-end with an internally developed 20G to 40G bit/sec ATM switch, said Kevin Dillon, Bay's ATM product marketing manager.
In addition to OC-3 and OC-12 on singlemode and multimode fiber, the Centillion 1000 products support DS-3/ E-3 and DS-1/E-1 links. The DS-1/E-1 processor can support the new voice integration features through circuit emulation.
Circuit emulation converts T-1/E-1 voice or video circuits to ATM cells for transport with data and video traffic across corporate intranets.
The Centillion 1000 ATM switches are expected to begin shipping in volume in March with prices starting at $15,900. The ATM DS-1/E-1 circuit emulation card is expected to begin shipping in April at a cost of $7,995.
For ATM routing, Bay added support for the ATM Forum's Private Network-to-Network Interface (PNNI) specification to its Centillion LAN/ATM switches. PNNI is a link-state, hierarchical dynamic routing protocol for ATM, which alleviates the need for network managers to use static routes or proprietary routing protocols, Bay said.
With PNNI, multivendor ATM switches can "discover" each other by exchanging PNNI topology information.
PNNI for the Centillion product line is expected to begin shipping in March.
Bay: (408) 988-2400
