New Cabletron stackable switch scales to gigabit speeds

Aggressively priced device packed with advanced features, including quality-of-service support.

By Jim Duffy
Network World, 02/08/99

ROCHESTER, N.H. - A Cabletron stackable switch introduced last week is designed to allow users to connect high-performance desktops to Gigabit Ethernet backbones at attractive prices.

The SmartStack ELS100-24TXG is a 24-port 10/100M bit/sec autosensing Ethernet switch with two Gigabit Ethernet uplinks. The device is targeted at large sites requiring lots of ports at the edge of an enterprise network, and at sharedhub customers looking to migrate to switching.

The new SmartStack features a 4.2G bit/sec switching fabric, a forwarding rate of 6M packet/sec and a per-port list price of $166 to $180. Conversely, 10/100/1000M bit/sec switches from 3Com and Nortel Networks have switching fabrics up to 2.5G bit/sec, forwarding rates as fast as 10M packet/ sec and per-port prices between $153 and $243.

Though Cabletron claims to have one of the highest performing stackable switches on the market at the lowest price, analysts say price is becoming less of a determinant for user purchases.

"There's not a whole lot of difference between the top four vendors in terms of pricing," says Esmeralda Silva of International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass. Customers are becoming more concerned with how switches compare on features, such as quality-of-service support, she says.

Cabletron's new switch features IEEE 802.1q tagging for virtual LANs and 802.1p for prioritization.

Cabletron boasts that it can support up to 4,096 VLANs per switch. The device has two priority queues.

Other features include wire-speed switching on all ports in half- and full-duplex mode, and support for more than 16,000 media access control addresses. The switch also features technology for handling flow control and broadcast control.

The SmartSwitch comes with a built-in Web server that allows users to configure the switch from any Web browser.

It also supports four groups of Remote Monitoring per port and port mirroring for fault isolation by a network analyzer.

Cabletron plans to let customers manage the new switch via the company's Spectrum enterprise and element management systems.

Users can pick from three physical interfaces for the switch's Gigabit Ethernet uplinks: 1000Base-SX fiber, 1000Base-LX fiber and shielded twisted pair copper.

The uplinks also support Cabletron's SmartTrunk capability, which allows multiple network connections to be bundled into one high-speed pipe.

Cabletron: (603) 332-9400