New LAN gear may put Nortel back in the game

Nortel this week will unveil new stackable switches aimed at making enterprise edge connections more resilient and convergence-ready. Meanwhile, the embattled vendor hopes the products will revive its dormant enterprise network business, observers say.

Nortel's BayStack 470-48T could help IT departments pack a large number of network ports into a small area while improving on basic Layer 2 connection reliability between a wiring closet and the enterprise core, according to the company. The BayStack 380-24T is aimed at connecting high-end PCs and workstations with Gigabit Ethernet to the desktop.

The 470-48T is a Layer 2 switch that crams 48 10/100M bit/sec ports in a single-rack unit space. Gigabit interface converter (GBIC) module slots on the box can be used for uplinks to a backbone or to other switches or servers. The box also includes an integrated "cascade" stacking module for stacking up to eight switches together to act as a single device. The technique lets the stack be maintained in case of a switch failure.

The integrated stacking module caught the interest of Bruce Meyer, senior network engineer at ProMedica Healthcare in Toledo, Ohio.

"Right now, I have to pay another $400 to stack my [BayStack] switches together," because a separate stacking module was required to link older BayStacks, Meyer says.

The 470-48T lets users choose from three types of quality-of-service (QoS) technologies. While it is a Layer 2 device, the 470-48T can recognize Layer 3 and Layer 4 QoS information in packets, with support for Type of Service and Differentiated Services QoS methods. The switch also can provide Layer 2 802.1p traffic prioritization and 802.1Q virtual LAN tagging.

The 470-48T also supports Nortel's Split Multilink Trunking (Split MLT) technology, an alternative to Spanning Tree Protocol (STP), the standard Layer 2 method for link failover and loop prevention. Split MLT lets a BayStack switch support separate live connections to two backbone switches, known as dual homing. This technique provides BayStacks with a 2G bit/sec uplink and a one-second failover in the case of a downed connection, but STP does not allow for live dual homing connections and takes up to 45 seconds to fail over.

For power users, Nortel's 380-24T switch provides 24 10/100/1000M bit/sec copper-based Ethernet ports, along with two GBIC uplinks. The box supports the same QoS and Split MLT functions as the 470-48T, and is aimed at users who require Gigabit Ethernet desktop connections, such as graphic artists who create bandwidth-intensive graphics or financial traders who require multiple real-time market data feeds piped to their workstations.

The two new BayStacks are the latest in Nortel's line of fixed-configuration workgroup switches, and will compete with products such as Cisco's Catalyst 2900 series and 3550 XL, 3Com's SuperStack 3 Switch 4400 and Foundry Networks' FastIron 4802.

The 470-48T and 380-24T will be available in June for $4,500 and $8,000, respectively.

While Nortel's latest switches are not based on earth-shattering technology, analysts say, the products could be a sign that Nortel is poised to make a comeback.

But any such move will be more of a marathon than a sprint, as Nortel was fifth in Ethernet port shipments in 2001, down from third place the previous year, according to In-Stat/MDR.

"Nortel is losing market share" as smaller competitors, such as 3Com, Hewlett-Packard and Allied Telesyn have grown, says Lauri Vickers, an analyst with In-Stat/MDR. "They're still in [the enterprise market], but they don't show as much emphasis toward it as other areas, like optical."