Force10 Networks last week launched a mid-range Ethernet switch chassis aimed at taking on boxes such as the Cisco Catalyst 6500 and Foundry Networks' Super X series at the LAN edge and aggregation layer.

The Force10 C300 switch is an eight-slot chassis designed to connect large groups of users with 10/100/1000Mbps links, as well as Power over Ethernet (PoE). The device also supports high-density 10G Ethernet connections, allowing the box to act as an aggregation layer switch, or for connecting a C300 in wiring closets directly to a 10G LAN core. Force10 says the chassis gives enterprise users a lower-cost option from its high-end E-Series, while surpassing competitive chassis on performance.

The C300 supports as many as 384 10/1000/1000Mbps ports in a chassis. A 6,000 Watt power supply and optional PoE-enabled 48-port line cards also can support in-line power on every port in the switch, Force10 says. Four-port 10G line cards can be used to link to LAN aggregation or core switches, and 32 10G ports are supported in the chassis. The chassis also runs the Force10 Operating System, which allows switches to isolate Layer 2 and 3 forwarding for resiliency, and allows for in-service hot swapping of blades and redundant management modules.

Force10's C300 launch is part of a strategy to branch out from its traditional niche of high-end 10G Ethernet data centers; Google, YouTube, Yahoo, FaceBook and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories are among the users Force10's E-Series 10G switches. The company is doing this with lower-cost triple-speed and 10G Ethernet blades, with some high-end routing and data center switching features taken out -- Border Gateway Protocol and large route tables. This leads to lower cost: a 48-port triple-speed module for the E-Series lists at more than $30,000; the new C-Series blades start at $8,000.

One user of Force10 in the core and data center is eHarmony, the online dating Web site. The company uses E-Series switches in its server data centers, and for its WAN edge links. Now the company is pushing the C300 switches into its corporate network to support around 300 employees in its Pasadena, Calif.-based headquarters and operations center.

"It gives us a highly resilient, incredible capacity," says Cyrus Mohit, manager of data center operations for eHarmony. In addition to connecting users, the company is also using C300 chassis as a backup network infrastructure for its main network of E-Series switches.