* Cisco and Foundry separately put more 10 Gig Ethernet into switches
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
