Extreme upgrades Ethernet switch

Extreme Networks this week unveiled a Carrier Ethernet switch for smaller Tier 2 and 3 service providers.

The BlackDiamond 20804 Ethernet Transport switch is the latest addition to Extreme's BlackDiamond 20800 series of Carrier Ethernet switches. Extreme rolled out the 8-slot BlackDiamond 20808 a year ago.

The evolution of the Internet

The 20804 is intended to address service provider requirements for residential video, business Ethernet and mobile backhaul services, and those migrating from SONET/SDH and Gigabit Ethernet rings to 10 Gigabit Ethernet rings.

The BlackDiamond 20804 provides 120Gbps per slot line-rate switching capacity in a four-slot chassis. It supports up to 32 line-rate 10G Ethernet ports per chassis today, with bandwidth for future 100G Ethernet I/O Modules, Extreme says.

The 20804 is designed for future switch fabric upgrades to enable 480Gbps of switching capacity per slot, Extreme says.
The switch features multicast quality of service hardware resources to accelerate video service delivery, and business Ethernet service delivery is supported through Metro Ethernet Forum-certified E-LINE, E-LAN and pre-standard E-NNI capabilities. According to Infonetics Research, service provider revenue for residential video service will surpass voice services.

The 20804 also supports Provider Backbone Bridging technology, which is designed to enable carriers to scale aggregation networks by limiting the broadcast of Ethernet MAC addresses.

The BlackDiamond 20800 Series includes Ethernet Access Protection Switching -- IETF RFC 3619 -- for Ethernet ring resiliency, and Continuity Fault Management and ITU Y.1731 for fault and service management.

The BlackDiamond 20804 Ethernet transport switch will be available in the first quarter of 2010. The starting list price is $75,455.