Fixed Switching

Product Assessment reports from Current Analysis provide a timely and in-depth evaluation on how leading products and services in a market measure up to their competition. Updated regularly by our industry-leading analysts, the reports deliver an objective and un-biased look at a product's strengths and weaknesses, ratings on how well the product meets specific customer buying criteria, and relevant product metrics. Compare selected products with side-by-side listings of product metrics and other factors, with a focus on actionable intelligence.

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Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch 6850E Series

Alcatel-Lucent’s OmniSwitch 6850E is the youngest fixed product in the portfolio and possesses most of the features that modern enterprise LAN’s demand, balancing efficiency and performance and doing so with a compelling price point. (12/6/2011)

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Avaya Ethernet Routing Switch 5000 Series

Avaya’s Ethernet Routing Switch 5000 series is a popular, pedigreed product family with a mix of models and additional software features that compete nicely with other models in the marketplace. (12/6/2011)

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Brocade FastIron CX Series

Brocade FastIron CX provides a capable software feature set, competitive performance and density, and possesses redundant power supplies for some system resiliency in business-critical deployments such as VoIP and video. (12/6/2011)

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Cisco Catalyst 3750-X

Cisco’s 3750 Series remains one of the most capable and flexible fixed switching platforms in the industry with features, port & power options, and price points to meet most enterprise switching needs. (12/6/2011)

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Enterasys C5

The Enterasys S-Series remains competitive in the mid-range modular and small-medium data center market with good density, flexible chassis options and Enterasys’ strong policy management capabilities. (12/6/2011)

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Extreme Networks Summit X460

Extreme’s X460 stackable is competitive in the market as it functions as a high performance access device in addition to being a capable aggregation and small core switch due to good performance and reasonable port diversity. (12/6/2011)

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Juniper Networks EX4200 Line

Juniper’s EX4200 line of fixed configuration Ethernet switches threatens competitors with a higher stack count, a higher total port count, and the features that the majority of enterprise customers are seeking in a switch today. (12/6/2011)

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Top

• Current Analysis Perspective
• Product Strengths & Weaknesses
• Product Point and Counterpoint
• Product Buying Criteria
• Product Metrics

Fixed Switching Buying Criteria

• Management/Ease of Use
  • Management and Ease of Use criteria identify hardware and/or software features that differentiate the administration, maintenance, and reliability characteristics of this product.
• Performance
  • Performance criteria measures the aggregate capacity of the switch fabric, switching throughput, switch latency, and other factors which contribute to the overall speed and capacity of the device.
• Port Diversity
  • Scalability criteria measures the ability of the solution to grow with the needs of the enterprise, encompassing chassis size, blade/port density, and how upgradeable the overall solution is.
• Scalability
  • Incorporates the product’s power consumption per stream/chassis in full configuration and design elements aimed at reducing total cost of ownership (TCO).
• Total Cost Of Ownership
  • Total Cost of Ownership takes into consideration device pricing, warranty, and service pricing/offerings, as well as soft costs such as costs associated with deploying a specific product or training staff to use a significantly different interface.

Fixed Switching Product Metrics

• Physical Characteristics
  • Device Class
  • Primary Target Market
• QoS Features
  • Total Number of Transmit Queues Per Port
  • Total Number of Receive Queues Per Port
  • Strict Priority Queues
  • Rate Limiting Support
  • Rate Limiting Granularity
  • Classify by IP DSCP/TOS
  • Write/Re-write IP DSCP/TOS
• Protocol Support
  • 802.1w Fast Spanning Tree
  • 802.1s Per-VLAN Spanning Tree
  • 802.3ad Trunking
  • 802.1x User Authentication
  • Network Login
  • IGMP Snooping
  • IP Routing
  • IP Routing Protocols
• Interface Support
  • 10/100Base-T
  • 10/100Base-T with 802.3af
  • 100Base-FX
  • 10/100/1000Base-T
  • 10/100/1000Base-T with 802.3af
  • 1000Base-X (GBIC or SFP)
  • 10G - Fixed Optics
  • 10G - XENPAC
  • Other (Specify Type and Port Count)
  • Special Modules (Non-line Cards)
• High Availability
  • Redundant Power Supplies
  • Non-Stop Code Upgrade
• Performance
  • Aggregate Switch Throughput
  • Forwarding Rate
  • Non-blocking Wire Speed
  • Switch Forwarding Latency
• Pricing
  • Switch Price
  • Expansion Module Pricing
• Support
  • Standard Warranty
  • Enterprise Maintenance Contract