3Com revs up new switch

By Jim Duffy
Network World, 12/14/98

San Francisco - 3Com will soon announce a scaled-down version of the CoreBuilder 9000, the company's top-of-the-line Gigabit Ethernet and ATM switch.

The new seven-slot switch follows 3Com's September introduction of the first version of the CoreBuilder 9000, a 16-slot offering designed for backbone networks and data centers. The new version is for use in wiring closets connecting up to about 200 nodes, according to 3Com officials at the company's Networks3 user conference here last week.

Currently, 3Com's wiring closet products consist mainly of stackable SuperStack II switches. But the company says its new chassis-based switch provides more ports and more high-speed workgroup-to-backbone connectivity options.

"It's pretty nice for a high-density wiring closet," says Kurtis Lindemann, network specialist at the College of Business at Ohio State University in Columbus, which is among the select 3Com accounts already using the new switch. The school has packed its seven-slot switches with 36-port 10/ 100M bit/sec modules and Gigabit Ethernet uplinks.

Lindemann says that with the smaller CoreBuilder 9000 box, users won't have to pay for a redundant switching fabric, as they would with the 16-slot version. However, seven-slot chassis customers will still get redundant power supplies and management modules. The downside is if users want to expand to two switching fabrics, they can't, he says.

"It isn't really designed for core, ultraredundant applications," says Duncan Potter, 3Com director of product management for switching systems.

For packet networks, the seven-slot CoreBuilder 9000 features a 120G bit/sec backplane. Six of its slots can be used for switching modules - the same Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet and ATM modules used by the 16-slot CoreBuilder 9000 - and the seventh slot houses the switch fabric. Two slots can be used for management and controller redundancy.

The seven-slot chassis will support ATM core switching configurations in the first quarter of 1999, Potter says. As an ATM switch, it will support dual-homing for redundant connectivity between workgroups and backbones, 3Com says.

For Layer 2 applications, the seven-slot CoreBuilder 9000 will go up against Cisco's new Catalyst 4000 and a stack of Nortel Networks' BayStack 450s. For Layer 3 requirements, the 3Com switch will vie against Cisco's Catalyst 5500 and 8510, Cabletron's SmartSwitch Router 2000 and Nortel's Accelar 1050. Nortel is also expected to unveil new chassis-based wiring closet switches early next year.

Modules for the seven-slot CoreBuilder 9000 include two- and nine-port Layer 2 Gigabit Ethernet, 20-port Layer 2 10/100Base-TX autosensing, and new 36-port Layer 2 10/100Base-TX and 10-port Layer 2 100Base-FX cards. The Gigabit Ethernet modules are optimized for backbone and server aggregation, while the Fast Ethernet cards are designed for high-performance desktops and workgroups, server connectivity and downlinks to backbone switches.

The 36-port module will ship in volume next month, while the 10-port module will ship in February.

In late February, 3Com will release Layer 3 Fast Ethernet modules for the seven- and 16-slot CoreBuilder 9000s. One will be a 12-port 10/ 100Base-TX card and the other will be a 10-port 100Base-FX module.

3Com will also roll out high-density Layer 3 Gigabit Ethernet modules for the CoreBuilder 9000 line in the second half of 1999, 3Com officials say.

Six-port FDDI cards for the CoreBuilder 9000 line will be delivered in the second half of 1999. In addition, the company is developing modules with single-mode fiber and SONET-based interfaces, Potter says.

Pricing for the sevenslot CoreBuilder 9000 will be comparable to the 16-slot version and other vendors' offerings: about $250 to $300 per Fast Ethernet port and $2,500 for Gigabit Ethernet.

3Com can be reached at (408) 326-5000.

Senior Editor Jeff Caruso contributed to this story.