How we did it

Spirent Communications provided all the performance testing equipment we used. We employed five SmartBits SMB-6000B chassis, fully populated with FBC-3602A 1G and 2G-bit/sec Fibre Channel modules. Spirent's SmartFabric test application, Version 1.31, provided port-by-port results.

Cisco submitted an MDS 9509 switch populated with two DS-X9530-SF1-K9 Supervisor 1 cards running firmware Version 1.3(3) and seven DS-X9016, 16-port 1G and 2G bit/sec Fibre Channel cards.

All tests were run for 30 seconds using small (60-byte) and large (2,148-byte) frames at 100% load and were repeated several times to note variability. Latency was measured while applying less than maximum loads.

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Spirent Communications provided all the performance testing equipment we used. We employed five SmartBits SMB-6000B chassis, fully populated with FBC-3602A 1G and 2G-bit/sec Fibre Channel modules. Spirent's SmartFabric test application, Version 1.31, provided port-by-port results.

Cisco submitted an MDS 9509 switch populated with two DS-X9530-SF1-K9 Supervisor 1 cards running firmware Version 1.3(3) and seven DS-X9016, 16-port 1G and 2G bit/sec Fibre Channel cards.

All tests were run for 30 seconds using small (60-byte) and large (2,148-byte) frames at 100% load and were repeated several times to note variability. Latency was measured while applying less than maximum loads.

With the high-stress, full-mesh throughput test, we configured the 112 SmartBits ports to send frames to, and receive from, each other port.

In the reboot, we cut off and restored power to see how quickly it could resume normal operation.

To test non-disruptive code load, we did a full-mesh test of large frames across all 112 ports. A code load sequence was initiated and completed while the traffic flows continued.

A fabric failure was simulated during a full-mesh test by removing the active Supervisor module while traffic was passing.

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