Cisco, Foundry add more 10 Gig

Last week Cisco and Foundry Networks separately beefed up their 10 Gigabit Ethernet offerings.

As Network World’s Phil Hochmuth detailed in a recent article, Cisco’s wide-ranging upgrade of its Catalyst line of switches included a 10 Gigabit Ethernet module for the Catalyst 6500 that uses the brand-spanking-new IEEE 10GBase-CX4 standard.

The spec standardizes a method for sending 10 Gigabit Ethernet on twinax cable over short distances. The applications are somewhat limited, but they exist – and Cisco’s product is coming out at just $600 per port, according to Phil’s article. Other vendors are bound to release products using the standard as well.

Cisco also introduced a module for the Catalyst 6500 that has 48 ports of fiber-optic-based Gigabit Ethernet, and a version of the Catalyst 3750 with a 10 Gigabit Ethernet fiber uplink. There were management and VPN capabilities introduced as well; you can find Phil’s comprehensive story at:

https://www.nwfusion.com/news/2004/0322cisco10g.html

Meanwhile, Foundry unveiled the X-series models of its FastIron Layer 2/3 switch line. The X-series really pushes the idea of Gigabit Ethernet to the desktop. There are models with 24 or 48 ports of Gigabit Ethernet, upgradeable with fiber-optic 10 Gigabit Ethernet uplinks (one or two).

The X-series is primarily a Layer 2 device, but it is software-upgradeable to do routing at Layer 3.

Phil had more details on the Foundry announcements as well at:

https://www.nwfusion.com/news/2004/0315foundry.html