Force10, Alcatel debut 10G, high-density Ethernet gear

Force10 Networks and Alcatel are rolling out Gigabit Ethernet switch products that pack high port densities.

Force10's E300 switch can support up to 48 ports of Gigabit Ethernet and two 10G Ethernet connections in a four-slot chassis, which could help companies looking for a high-speed LAN backbone or data center switch that doesn't take up much rack space.

Among the three new products from Alcatel is a Gigabit blade that packs up to 24 10/100/1000Base-T ports per slot in an OmniSwitch 8000, which could help in the deployment of Gigabit-enabled servers in a data center.

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Force10 Networks and Alcatel are rolling out Gigabit Ethernet switch products that pack high port densities.

Force10's E300 switch can support up to 48 ports of Gigabit Ethernet and two 10G Ethernet connections in a four-slot chassis, which could help companies looking for a high-speed LAN backbone or data center switch that doesn't take up much rack space.

Among the three new products from Alcatel is a Gigabit blade that packs up to 24 10/100/1000Base-T ports per slot in an OmniSwitch 8000, which could help in the deployment of Gigabit-enabled servers in a data center.

Force10's E300 is the third chassis product from the 10G Ethernet start-up, following the debut of its E600 and E1200 last September. At the time of its debut, Force10 was the only vendor shipping 10G Ethernet technology that ran at a full 10G bit/sec, but competitors Cisco and Foundry Networks have since caught up.

Force10 says that in addition to having all non-blocking ports on its modules, the blades provide more resiliency than competing products. Force10 says its blades use separate ASICs for Layer 2, Layer 3 and packet management functions, which lets traffic keep flowing in case a component fails. Competitors combine these features into single chips, making them more vulnerable, Force10 says.

Alcatel's new blades include a 24-port 10/100/1000 model for the OmniSwitch 8000 large enterprise backbone switch and 12-port 10/100/ 1000 blade for the OmniSwitch 7000 (Alcatel's aggregation box). Alcatel also is introducing 1000Base-X versions of these respective modules that can accept a mix of fiber and copper-based mini-Gigabit interface converter port inserts.

The releases fill product gaps for each company. The E300 addresses Force10's lack of a switch for midsize companies, while Alcatel's new blades bring the vendor's OmniSwitch line up to speed with competitors in terms of Gigabit densities.

However, neither vendor is making much noise in the market for modular LAN switch ports - they held less than 2% of worldwide shipments in the third quarter, according to Synergy Research. (Alcatel had 1.9% of the 16.3 million ports; Force10, whose products have been available for 14 months, had less than .1%.)

Pricing for Force10's E300 with a fully loaded, 72-port 100/1000M bit/sec port configuration is $52,000. A chassis with 48 10/100 and two 10G ports costs $70,000. An all 10G Ethernet chassis, with six 10GBase-LX ports, costs $104,000.

Alcatel's 24-port 10/100/1000 and 1000Base-X blades for the OmniSwitch 8000 cost $10,000 and $16,000, respectively. The 12-port blades for the OmniSwitch 7000 cost $2,300 for the 10/100/1000 version, and $7,500 for the 1000Base-X version.

Read more about lans & wans in Network World's LANs & WANs section.