| Digg | Slashdot | Fark | Stumble | |
| MIXX | del.icio.us | Newsvine | Technorati | |
Laptops With Epic Battery Life Keep You Working
Microsoft Office 2010 highlights
11 summer vacation ideas for geeks
The Geek Atlas: Terrific Tech Shrines That Every Geek Should See
From Palm Pilot to Palm Pre: A Brief History of Palm's Handhelds
Products of the Week
Windows 7 in Pictures: 10 Cool Desktop Features
The Worst U.S. Cities to Work in IT
The rise and fall of Nortel
Our round-up of intriguing new products from Sun, Brocade, HP among others.
Salaries, bonuses, perks and stock awards add up to big pay packages for tech CEOs
Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Dell, D-Link, Extreme, Foundry and HP...By Anonymous on March 25, 2008, 4:48 pmAlcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Dell, D-Link, Extreme, Foundry and HP. Well typed Linksys meant D-Link. Whats the difference? lols Did Enterasys, Force 10, maybe JNPR's new line as well. Did they all decline as well?
Vendor participationBy Anonymous on March 25, 2008, 4:52 pmYes, both Enterasys and Force 10 declined. The first because its new switch was not ready in time and the company didn't want to run with an old one, and the latter because of resource issues in supporting the test while they had another one running. Juniper was not ready to even talk about its new line when we were testing but have been told by the company that we are in line for a review unit when they become available next month. Like I said, we invite them all.
Re: Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco, Dell, D-Link, Extreme, Foundry and HPBy david_newman on March 25, 2008, 4:49 pmEnterasys declined because it was between releases. Force10 said it was "currently focused on other testing projects." Juniper only introduced its enterprise switches in late January, after testing concluded. We're talking with Juniper about testing its products using the same methodology we used here; at last word Juniper said we'd get a switch to test in May. Regards, David Newman Network Test
Unbelievable BS This Rag has NO CredibilityBy Anonymous on March 25, 2008, 4:26 pmNW does not even test the top market share holders, except CSCO, in 10Gig Edge switching, namely market share holders are Cisco, 3Com, Nortel etc. not Linksys, Dell. This article is laughable, Im cancelling my subscription
RE: Unbelievable BSBy Anonymous on March 25, 2008, 4:47 pmIgnorance is bliss, please cancel your subscription and never post here again. You can only Nortel and 3Com for not wanting to participate, maybe you should write them a letter............. Do us all a favor and don't reproduce.
We invited all switch vendors to participate in this testBy Anonymous on March 25, 2008, 4:46 pmAs is standard operating procedure in NWW tests, we invited all vendors to participate in this test. Both Nortel and 3Com declined our invitation. We did test Cisco and Dell, but not Linksys as you claim in your post.
Nice jab at the tester, get real for a minuteBy Anonymous on March 25, 2008, 4:24 pmDo you really think that Network World's ad revenue rate has anything to do with a third-party testing company's bias in a review? I think not. Dave Newman - great job!
Extreme retention of passwordsBy Anonymous on March 25, 2008, 4:17 pmThe Extreme XOS based switches have two methods to clear the configuraton. Use "unconfigure switch" to reset the configuration to factory defaults, but without erasing the configuration. This preserves users account information, date and time settings, SummitStack configuration, and so on. Include the parameter "all" to clear the entire current configuration, including all switch and SummitStack parameters, and reboot using the last used image and factory default configuration. Therefore, using the command "unconfigure swtich all" does erase everything and returns the switch back to the configuration state that it was shipped with.
Re: Extreme retention of passwordsBy Anonymous on March 25, 2008, 4:20 pm"Therefore, using the command "unconfigure swtich all" does erase everything and returns the switch back to the configuration state that it was shipped with." That's true with regard to the system configuration. With the version of XOS we tested, we found that the system retained the admin password and also ssh private keying material after running "unconf switch" and rebooting. We notified Extreme of these results prior to publication. Regards, David Newman
Extreme and "unconfig switch"By Anonymous on March 25, 2008, 4:21 pmI'm confused. There is a correct CLI command to erase everything and one that gives the user a choice not to erase everything. So you choose the one that is documented not to erase everything and then say it is a fault. It appears to me that you chose to ignore the "explicitly" documented methodology. Please help me understand if you know the correct method and choose not to invoke it how that is fault of the vendor who documented what you are supposed to do.
Re: Extreme and "unconfig switch"By david_newman on March 25, 2008, 4:22 pmFirst of all, who are you, "anonymous", and what is your connection, if any, with Extreme? Second, we went over these results with Extreme in detail during testing and prior to publication. We asked Extreme which commands to use, and told to Extreme what the results were. With regard to private keying material staying on the switch, Extreme said that it had opened a feature request to address this in a future release of XOS. That doesn't sound like us "choosing to ignore" something as you erroneously suggest. With regard to wiping passwords, we used "unconf switch" because that's what Extreme told us to use. I've since returned the X450 so can't verify if "unconf switch all" would wipe the password, but it sounds as if that's what you're suggesting. Regards, David Newman Network Test
Extreme Networks official responseBy Paul_Hooper on April 2, 2008, 5:38 pmDave, we’d like to express our thanks for your willingness to tackle this very complex product category with an extensive and well-designed set of tests. As you mention in your introduction, these products have graduated from simple “packet pushers” to highly complex and capable elements of modern networks. And since many – if not most – of your readers lack the time or resources to complete a test of this caliber, you’re doing a great service for the networking community. Some of the comments made in response to this test have pointed out the absence of price as a factor in your rankings. As participants in this test, we’d like to acknowledge that Dave conducted and scored the test in good faith. He gave us full transparency into the test metrics before the tests were conducted. Dave and others on the board rightfully point out that customers rarely pay list price, which makes price a very difficult metric for quantitative comparison. Fortunately, buyers will weigh the contents of this review for themselves before making purchasing decisions and they will include quoted prices as part of their holistic evaluation of the competitive products. We believe our Summit X450 series is an outstanding product, especially when product pricing and high-end operational features are considered. Finally, we’d like to credit Dave with finding an issue with residual configuration information on the Summit X450 Series switch. We can confirm that the command Dave used to return the switch to factory defaults ("unconfig switch all") does not delete old configuration files. As a result, an administrator may believe that no configuration information remained on the switch after having executed the “unconfig”command. Extreme Networks is issuing a field notice that documents a two-command procedure that will delete all old configuration files, including private keying material, and return the switch to factory defaults. Within 90 days Extreme Networks will release a security update that will cause the "unconfig switch all" command to completely remove all old configuration files from the switch. In the meantime, we advise any customers who are reselling or discarding previously-configured switches to contact Extreme Networks for a simple CLI procedure to fully remove configuration information from the product.
Switch testingBy Anonymous on March 25, 2008, 4:10 pmAnother "test" rigged to show Cisco winning... I guess the huge number of ads from Cisco on here is a good reason why. Who wants to pay for a switch that starts to block after 60-70% capacity???
Switch testingBy Anonymous on March 25, 2008, 4:15 pmAnother unbiased Cisco World article.
Force10 GearBy Anonymous on March 25, 2008, 9:14 amI've used about 60% of the switches/routers that you tested as well as Force10 gear. I am wondering why you didn't test their stuff? As I recall some of their engineers are on the 10g IEEE committee....
Why no Force10?By Anonymous on March 25, 2008, 9:35 amForce10, too, declined our invitation to participate, saying it was focusing on other testing projects during our testing window.
Why no Force10By Anonymous on March 27, 2008, 12:52 amSome things just are not worth while...
RE: Cisco haterBy Anonymous on March 24, 2008, 6:28 pmGet over it, this was a performance test. I didn't see anything to indicate cost. Bottom line is that you get what you pay for. Based on past experience with many of these product lines I could never recommend Dell, HP, Alcatel and many of the others due to hardware stability issues. If you want to buy the cheapest switch (with horrible support) then go right ahead, it's your money. If you take a look at the number of features supported Cisco wins everytime, but that isn't to say that you need half of those features. Extreme and Foundry make very nice switches, but they don't always have everything you need 100% of the time. Basically you need to get over the fact that Cisco makes a decent product despite the high prices that they charge. BTW your analogy is completely horrible!
Do you really need Network World to explain prices to you?By Joel Snyder on May 16, 2008, 11:40 amI don't understand all these comments about price. Are you people unable to do simple subtraction? Prices are simple: you don't need Network World to say that $78 is more than $45. What Network World does is go beneath the covers to the stuff you can NOT find out by reading the CDW web pages where every product is above average. Are the guys complaining about pricing assuming that everyone simply buys whatever Network World gives the highest score to? If so, your IT departments are screwed up beyond hope and you need some serious reality adjustment. Here's the deal, folks: you take the Network World data. Then, you add in all the factors that are blindingly obvious (like price) and the factors that are specific to you (like you only buy what Cisco/HP/Extreme/whomever sells) to make your final decision. Let's not waste space in the magazine talking about what's obvious, but let's get some good data out about what's NOT obvious. This is like complaining about how hard it is to install a product: you install it once, but use it for 3 to 10 years. What's more important? Sure, if Network World were testing small shiny consumer gadgets, there'd be a whole different set of criteria. But this is enterprise-class stuff, and I've got to assume that someone buying 10Gb switches can figure out pricing on their own without Network World's help.
RE: Can't stop laughin...By Anonymous on March 27, 2008, 12:49 amWhy turn on all those features??? BECAUSE I CAN DAMNIT. Keep it simple...
Get a Cisco switch at theBy Anonymous on March 25, 2008, 10:09 pmGet a Cisco switch at the price/performance of a x450 to do say....L3 jumbo frames.....not so fast. But that would be about the switch ability to switch packets, which used to be Cisco's business. Cisco support, who are we kidding. They used to have stellar support 10 years ago. I personally considered the Cisco 4980 vs Extreme x450 and I just could not justify with a straight face such acquisition. But you are right, Cisco makes decent products....decent just doesn't cut it anymore.
I certainly have to agree -By Anonymous on April 4, 2008, 8:53 pmI certainly have to agree - a Cisco vs Extreme switch comparision in most categories and Extreme wins hands down. x450's and BlackDiamonds really can't be beat. Good to see a sensible comment!
RE: Cisco haterBy david_newman on March 24, 2008, 6:49 pmHello, I'm the author of this test. I didn't use price as a test criterion for this project because Network World asked me not to. Two issues went into that decision: 1. List prices are squishy. Especially for medium and large sized enterprises, list prices are often heavily discounted; prices vary HUGELY country to country (which is a scandal on its own, but vendor country pricing wasn't the device under test here); and one nominal reason for publications doing testing at all is to show you things you can't find out yourself -- such as scalability, security, and manageability of many switches all in one place. Your sales rep will still be happy to quote you a price. 2. There's a process issue. We told vendors price would not be a test criterion prior to them deciding to participate, and prior to them deciding which switch to send. I don't believe it could reasonably be called fair to ding a product on price if we'd told the particpating vendor we wouldn't be comparing on price. Of course price is a consideration for many (though not all) enterprises buying switches. We've used it as a test criterion in previous tests, and will do again in future tests (including an upcoming one on enterprise 802.11n solutions). Regards, David Newman
ethernet access switch shootoutBy Anonymous on May 29, 2008, 3:50 pmaccording to Gartner 3com is number 2 in ports shipped. why were they not included in the test?
Switching not necessarily a commodity - butBy Anonymous on March 28, 2008, 3:29 pmI saw the comments and certainly, price does matter. The fair way of doing such tests would be to ask for products in a certain price band, this way you are comparing apples to apples. Still it is fair to provide credits for meaningful features. So it would be great to work out a reasonably relevant mock RFP and ask for a bid - then ask for the vendors to provide the box that meets the needs and is priced reasonably within the scope of the test. If the products meet the requirements they can play. It is also fair to provide reasonable sophisticated features as peoples requirements for VLANs security features, inter VLAN layer 3 switching, high availability and management features. What is not fair is to compare two products that do not target the same customers. Cisco could command a 20% premium - in the actual bid price, based on the fact they are Cisco - still nobody gets a promotion for the visionary direction of choosing Cisco. However they do make good products, but they have lost some of their lead in the last few years - to many versions - to many OS´s - to little focus.
Even if I'm willing toBy Anonymous on March 28, 2008, 9:02 amEven if I'm willing to accept your reasoning for not including price as a point for comparison (and I don't accept that, it just smells terrible considering you've got Cisco ads plastered everywhere and a blog called "Cisco Subnet") how can you say that this was a performance test???? Cisco is well known as a blocking switch. Look at it's fully loaded performance.... fill all the ports and put 80% capacity on those ports and tell me what happens. Then do that same test on the Force10 or the Foundry. This especially inflates the price of the Cisco device even further because you can't use all of the switch you bought! If you think this isn't a real scenario, stop by our data center and see 6509's, and a few 6513's dropping packets like its their job. Let's also not forget that Cisco has finally rolled out an architechture that other vendors have had for years in their Nexsus-7000 and claimed it as new.
Even if I'm willing toBy david_newman on March 28, 2008, 1:58 pm"fill all the ports and put 80% capacity on those ports and tell me what happens. " Jeez, did you even read the article or methodology? In the unicast performance tests, that's *exactly* what we did -- offered traffic at up to line rate to all ports (48 gig ports in a fully meshed pattern, 2 10-gig ports in a port-pair pattern, all simultaneously) to determine each switch's throughput rate. We did this with three separate tests for 64-, 256-, and 1518-byte frames. For all switches except D-Link's DGS-3650, throughput was at or near line rate. In the case of the Catalyst 3750, the highest no-drop rate we observed was 99.5 percent of line rate. So, at least from these results (and others I've conducted of several of these same switches in private tests), your assertion about blocking at loads above 80% of line rate is way off base. Cisco argued that our 99.5% result was actually attributable to clock slop between the Spirent TestCenter interfaces and its switch, and said it had gone higher, something like 99.975% of line rate, in internal tests. I neither agree nor disagree with their testing, but I don't necessarily agree that loss due to clock slop is acceptable. This has come up before, and there are a couple of points to bear in mind. First, the crystals on precision test instruments such as Spirent TestCenter oscillate far less than ordinary Ethernet interfaces around nominal line rate. Second, neither Cisco nor any other vendor gets to decide what rate its customers' equipment operates at. The IEEE 802.3 specification is pretty clear about this: An Ethernet interface *must* tolerate clock slop of +/- 100 parts per million. Spirent TestCenter was well within that range. In any event, I don't consider the difference between 99.5 and 100 percent of line rate to be a huge problem in most production settings. Certainly packet loss is never a good thing, but I'm not so much of an absolutist to declare a switch is junk if it doesn't run at exactly line rate. I would say that if the throughput rate was 80 percent of line rate, but that simply isn't the case. Regards, David Newman ps. Who are you, "anonymous," and are you affiliated with any vendor?
If you have the performanceBy Anonymous on March 28, 2008, 9:16 amIf you have the performance problems you are saying you do (I doubt you actually do) then you have some serious engineer issues. The example test you have given is exactly why people choose cisco over the other vendors (except you have it backwards which is just freaking hilarious) When you fill a Cisco switch, you will get the performance you pay for. Vendors like HP and others many times won't put their switched pps and real world throughput. The performance difference I have seen in cases I've proofed personally between the cisco devices and others sells it for me and for my customers. I can't afford to make a decision to buy a crap switch because when my customer has problems, I lose business. You my friend, are an idiot.
PriceBy Anonymous on March 26, 2008, 10:59 amYou say: "Of course price is a consideration for many (though not all) enterprises buying switches." The reality is that price IS a consideration for ALL. However, in this case the IT manager has almost total influence over the vendor purchase decision since the bean counters are not technically proficient enough to challenge what he recommends. Cisco charges so much for their switches because MOST IT managers (and I know I will get in trouble for saying that in this magazine!) do not have the wisdom or the courage to pick another vendor. Everyone is locked into buying Cisco, because that is all they know and that is their comfort zone. Unfortunately, that does a disservice to the company, as the IT manager pays DOUBLE for his data infrastructure. Most just laugh and say the company doesn't care. Name me one company that doesn't care about wasting money. Name me one shareholder that doesn't care.
Price.....By Anonymous on March 29, 2008, 4:05 pmYou guys are all freaking out about what something costs to BUY, not what it COSTS to OWN!! If my IT infrastructure environment consists of 7 manufacturers hardware....how much time and effort does it take to support this over a single vendor environment over the life of those solutions? What kind of features do I get that I can ONLY get from a single vendor environment that a multi-vendor environment cant provide? What kind of discounts can I get on procuring hardware from a single manufacturer over buying from 4, 5, 6, 7 manufacturers? I think people are getting hung up on TCA (Total Cost of Aquisition) and forgetting completely about TCO ( Total Cost of Ownership) which is a more true evaluation of ANY products cost. Another automotive analogy: I think Consumer Reports is now producing for the first time ever a TCO calculation for each car it reviews. They have determined you can buy a Ford Explorer for $3000 cheaper than a Toyota Highlander, but the Highlander will be $6,000 cheaper over the life to own when, repairs, depreciation, downtime, etc are factored in. Just food for thought.
The Leader in Network Knowledge
RE: Review: 10Gig Ethernet access switch shootoutBy Anonymous on March 24, 2008, 11:38 amIt's incredible to me that you gave the top spot to Cisco when it was TWO TIMES the price of the nearest competitor! As a matter of fact you only mention it in passing, as if it is totally irrelevant. It does not appear in the "Cons" column for the Cisco! The overall scores among the top players were so close, an unbiased reviewer would have come out and said, "You should be fired if you waste your company's money on the Cisco switch". Period. Imagine an automotive magazine's shootout between a Ford, Chevy and Chrysler; where the reviewer finds that the cars are basically identical. The Ford wins by a hair but costs TWICE the price of the other cars. Can you imagine a single LEGIT automotive magazine that wouldn't totally trash the Ford for their pricing and highly recommend that the consumer avoid it?
RE: Review: 10Gig Ethernet access switch shootoutBy Anonymous on April 15, 2008, 4:27 pmI've used both Extreme and Cisco and since they both move packets equally well I have to base my decision on ease of configuration and Cisco blows Extreme away. Extreme's configuration is one big flat-file and there's no pipe or grep functionality. Something Cisco does so simple like STP configuration is a chore in XOS and don't even get me started on EAPS omg what a joke, can you say Layer 2 loop.
IT Professionals or "Religious Zealots"?By david.oberry on March 30, 2008, 2:24 amOh well..here goes..I am not gonna make friends with this one but I am not out to win any popularity contests. Forgive me in advance if any of this comes across as chiding or self-righteous because that is certainly not my intent. None of us are perfect (least of all me) and while I am in a different place at this point in time, I have been on that white-hot "Cisco is the Devil" wagon a few times in my career. What I learned though is that level of angst can be almost debilitating and you seldom make good decisions when you are blinded to either side of a discussion. To set the proper context for my comments: I have no remaining organization-owned Cisco products (the exception to me being able to say "no remaining" is one small PIX box over which I have no control) currently left in my enterprise at this point in time. With that said, if you read what went down Newman and his folks did a clear test based on their methodology. They published as such. They are answering all of the questions, even the ones posed in a completely asinine manner. You have anon posters taking potshots and the dude is still trying to answer even those questions in a reasonable manner. For one thing, most times hyper-critical anonymous posting in a situation like this is weak. Instead, show yourself and defend what you are saying. That is the only way to have real credibility. Period. Again, let me be clear here... I do not always agree with the way Cisco has done and continues to do business in some instances. I do not agree with how they fail to participate in standards until it behooves them to do so creating a possibly harmful environment for users at this point and at times stifling innovation. I also realize that Cisco seems to fail to understand that it holds a position in the industry that needs to transcend its old monopolistic control type mentality based on the increasingly vulnerable interconnected nature of the digital ecosystem in which we now reside. Having said all of the above, that is not what was tested here. Cisco is not going away and when people post like some did here it not only gives the establishment something to smirk about but it takes away from the credibility of people that actually take other paths for valid reasons. It can even hurt the argument for alternatives far more than it helps in many situations. What we need to do as end-users is come together and realize that we have to take a much stronger leadership position in this industry. Instead of letting companies tell us where to go and what to do, we need to be telling them what paths to go down to give us the tools to do our jobs. The new world we live in as far as security nearly demands that change and yet some would rather hold their breath, scream, and pitch a tantrum rather than reasonably come to the table as a consolidated group to address the concerns we have right now about the role Cisco currently plays. In this set of tests, Cisco beat ProCurve by a small margin. The prices were published and ProCurve's list was significantly below Cisco. The comments regarding the cost aspect were answered by Newman. I will go further than he did and say list price is a joke and anyone in the industry that does not realize that fact should refrain from posting. Consider also other vendors have products that did a bit worse in this test and yet are valid for the business cases of their customers. Foundry and Extreme barely missed Cisco and ProCurve as it is and if you break it down, what they lagged on might not even necessarily pertain when you begin looking at things like virtualization, iSCSI, etc. At the same time, Juniper and a few others will be competing hard in this market going forward and Newman acknowledged as such and said he and his folks would look at other product later as it becomes available. I simply do not see him hiding here. Even his explanation on the line-rate thing was solid and not evasive. He and his people also seem to detest the marketing FUD as much as the rest of us. I am not sure folks can ask for more than this because to do so almost precludes any testing ever being done for fear of "not being fair". I know I would not like to go back to those days because less knowledge is seldom a good thing in our profession. Take what you see here and do your own exploration, run your own tests, ask your own questions of the various vendors. Use it as a starting and reference point and not as an end all be all answer. Our roles are as stewards and leaders here, not tantrum pitching toddlers. If you are not able to make the case for whatever product you choose based on a test conducted by Network World then I submit you have bigger issues. Jeez..making me even come close to defending Cisco is just not right! On the other hand, defending a guy that I have never met or spoke with that is only trying to do a job to the best of his ability is a clear and easy choice each and every time. It cannot be easy to draw this particular task understanding the fervency on both sides. Keep that in mind as you anonymously wail away on him. Regards, David
Cisco Pricing???By Anonymous on March 28, 2008, 8:51 amThe analogy between Ford, Chevy and Chrysler would have some merit if everyone went in and paid list price which would be stupid. There is no way to include pricing in these test because list prices mean nothing, we currently have a contract with Cisco that gives us a 52% discount off list and includes a years of Smartnet which puts them directly inline with most other vendors around here.
Re: Cisco Pricing???By Anonymous on March 28, 2008, 10:51 amI couldn't agree more, Cisco gives much larger discounts than the rest. We purchase Juniper, Force10, F5, blucoat and Cisco just to name a few and Cisco by far has the highest discount rate. I guess if you work in the SMB market where you may not get very high discounts then this may be a big deal, but for anyone in the enterprise there is no excuse to go off and purchase a lack luster product.
I am sorry, but when someone writes an article about switchingBy Anonymous on March 25, 2008, 4:57 pmI am sorry, but when someone writes an article about switching technologies and then refers to a switch as a device that "can route IPV6 packets" I have a tendency to believe the author does not know what he is talking about. While 802.1x and IPV6 support may be desirable for some customers, does the added cost justify these features? In addition, how many people need DOS protection at the switch level or closer to the core?
Re: I am sorry ...By david_newman on March 25, 2008, 4:58 pmHey, I agree with you -- I too think the term "L3 switching" is really stupid. I just test the features on the boxes vendors send me. Unfortunately I can't stop marketeers from abusing terminology. As for DOS protection, I believe it is a useful feature on every element in the network, both for the data plane (keep the pipes free) and for the control plane (keep the device visible). Regards, David Newman Network Test ps. A plea, probably futile: Please don't post anonymously. Though some anonymous posts are pretty obviously vendor trolls, it's useful to know who you are in addition to what you have to say.
From a convicted terminology abuserBy slucas on April 2, 2008, 6:13 pmDave, as a red-handed “terminology-abusing marketer”, I’d like to offer up a brief explanation of the term “L3 switching” to help clarify what the term means, where it came from, and why it has become a bit of an anachronism in today’s technology world. It’s an interesting example of how technical terms evolve and change over time. Networking professionals know that network “switching” (as a technology) means forwarding decisions are made using layer 2 information (the MAC address). The term “routing” means those decisions are made using layer 3 information (the IP address). Way back in the early days of networking (6 or 7 years ago!), “routers” were complex, expensive, and relatively slow products that used software running on general-purpose processors to move traffic. Switches, which made simpler forwarding decisions based on the MAC address, were generally faster and less expensive. As a result, “switches” (the products) rapidly gained popularity in Enterprise networks. “Layer 3 switching” was born from the insight that once the initial “routing” decision was made, the switch’s MAC address table could be programmed with the source MAC/destination MAC address pair for faster “switched” forwarding of subsequent traffic. So the slower “routing” technology established the initial path and “switching” moved subsequent traffic. Today, the taxonomy for networking has evolved. We now reserve the word “router” for big products that support intra-domain routing protocols like BGP or for small devices (think SOHO or branch) that support LAN/WAN interfaces and provide network address translation services. We use the term “switch” primarily to describe products that support only Ethernet media and inter-domain routing protocols like OSPF. Nearly all Enterprise-grade switch products can use layer 3 information to make forwarding decisions. So if you hear a vendor refer to an “L3 switch,” that means the product probably has only Ethernet interfaces and it is capable of making forwarding decisions using IP information. An “L2 switch” meets the more classic definition of a switch because it is not typically capable of making forwarding decisions using L3 information. To complicate matters, many advanced L2 switches ARE capable of making access control decisions (not forwarding decisions) using L3 information. That’s where the divergence in terminology enters the picture. “Switching” and “routing” as technologies are still what we learned in school, but “switches” and “routers” as product categories have evolved – not necessarily due to terminology abuse (well, okay, maybe :)), but due to the fact that “routing” technologies have crept into the “switch” product category. Scott Lucas Extreme Networks
Where is price in the weighting factor?By Anonymous on March 25, 2008, 4:53 pmWith Cisco being at least twice the cost of every other switch in the comparison, why is price not a factor? IT budgets are not unlimited. If you weight price a nominal 15% of the scale then Cisco can potentially go from #1 to #4.
Agree 100%By Anonymous on March 25, 2008, 4:56 pmThis should figure into ROI. People do get fired for buying too much Cisco. Overspend a companies dollars and your buddy down the hall gets whacked.