Going Gonzo for Gigabit
May 17, 1999
By Joel Conover
For network infrastructure, 1998 was a year of maturation. Gigabit Ethernet products took hold and drove down the prices of older technologies. Product focus shifted noticeably toward improved QoS (Quality of Service) and policies to manage it. And vendors unified not only their services but themselves, as they courted mergers in an attempt to become all things to all customers.
Now that the Gigabit Ethernet standard is complete and vendors are shipping gigabit products in earnest, this should be your year to migrate. The products have come of age, and all major vendors are offering first- and second-generation products based on the IEEE standard. Seasoned vendors--including Cisco Systems, Nortel Networks and 3Com Corp.--that held out for the complete standard are reclaiming market share from startups that emerged in the prestandard market. 3Com, for example, is dominating the gigabit Layer 2 market with its cost-effective SuperStack II Switch 9300, which received a Best Value award in our most recent tests of Gigabit Ethernet switches (see "Gigabit Ethernet Switches Set To Take on the Enterprise," www.networkcomputing.com/916/916r1.html).
Competition drives innovation, and the trend of faster, less expensive, higher functionality products has reached its climax in the infrastructure market. Vendors are slashing prices and raising the bar on features to attract your business. Startup Foundry Networks' FastIron II came out on top in our recent tests of Layer 3 switches thanks to its extensive support of IP, IPX and AppleTalk routing, advanced QoS features and extensive filtering capabilities (see "Foundry's FastIron II Forges Past Midrange Layer 3 Rivals," www.networkcomputing.com/1005/1005r1.html).
Fast Ethernet interfaces dropped below the $100-per-port level in the past year, while intelligent switches capable of enterprise-class routing dipped to less than $300 per port.
In the 10/100 switching world, most vendors are cramming 24 ports or more onto a single chip, which will push down prices to less than $50 per port from $100.
Even Gigabit Ethernet switches costs less; startup SwitchCore, for example, has integrated a 15-port Gigabit Ethernet switch onto a single chip, which means switch vendors can sell each fiber gigabit port for less than $700. And when copper Gigabit Ethernet appears as expected later this year, gigabit prices are likely to fall even further.
Shortened product-development cycles, improved ASIC technology and tough competition are driving the price cuts. Vendors previously counted on a product to survive for five to 10 years; today, products tend to have a three-to-five-year life cycle. For the end user, this results in lower prices, but it also means more frequent technology updates.
Next-Generation Networks
Besides blistering performance and unbeatable prices, this year's products featured many of the next-generation features you should be looking for as you design your next backbone network. QoS, both on the LAN and on the WAN, is essential to unified services.
On the LAN, it means products that support 802.1p priority tagging--as every switch product we tested in 1998 did. At the wide-area-network boundary, products that reclassify data from LAN priority (802.1p) to WAN priority (IP Type of Service) will keep prioritized data moving smoothly across your enterprise. The bigger picture requires service providers to honor these priority tags across the WAN. Differentiated services will be a selling point for carriers out to lure corporate accounts. VoIP (voice over IP), desktop collaboration and videoconferencing all can benefit from prioritized traffic across the LAN-WAN boundaries.
Expect to see other important features find their way into the new products as a host of new standards for VLANs (virtual LANs), priority, port trunking and flow control also have been ratified. IT buyers are no longer tied to a single proprietary solution for managing VLANs and priority on a network.
Port trunking, currently a draft in the IEEE, protects your backbone investment. Many switches for sale offer proprietary methods of trunking: Cisco's EtherChannel, Nortel's MLT and Lucent Technologies' Hunt Groups all support bundling multiple Ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet connections into a single "big pipe." This solution allows you to add bandwidth to your backbone and out to the edge of your network, as long as you have ports to spare. This makes a strong case for buying chassis-based backbone switches, as they allow for expansion as your needs grow.
Real Network Management
New-and-improved networks deserve new-and-improved management capabilities. Two hot topics due to make a mark this year are policy-based networking and directory-enabled networks. Policy-based networking is the industry's answer to enabling end-to-end QoS on a per-user basis. Directory-enabled networks are the means to manage the policy-based networking schemes.
The two terms, which go hand-in-hand, may be the key to the gates of network-management heaven. The first directory-enabled devices to appear will allow better management of switch parameters. By dumping all relevant switch data into a universal directory, it will be possible to configure VLANs, ports or entire switches from a hierarchical directory. Once switch assets are in place in the directory, the next logical step is to tie user information to the switch-asset database, which is where policy-based networking comes into play.
Nearly every vendor has a policy-based networking plan on its 1999 road map. Initial offerings will vary greatly by vendor and most likely will be proprietary to each vendor's equipment. But in general, policy-based network management should strengthen the QoS capabilities of many products. By providing a user-to-network database, enabling QoS based on user or application type will be a simple click-and-drag maneuver.
Mergers, Big and Small
Besides the maturation of Gigabit Ethernet technology, a second major trend is changing the face of the network. Vendors are converging more rapidly than ever, in an attempt to provide more complete network service.
Bay Networks, the result of the merger of Wellfleet and Synoptics, was purchased by Nortel Networks. Digital Equipment's business was broken apart among Intel, which picked up the vendor's silicon business; Compaq Computer Corp., which gained Digital's service and support and Alpha microprocessor arms; and Cabletron Systems, which acquired the network hardware division. Likewise, Lucent Technologies announced its intention to acquire Ascend Communications, further strengthening its unified-services approach to enterprise networking.
Alcatel also stepped up to the plate, acquiring Packet Engines and Xylan, and announcing its intention to play in the LAN-WAN market. Even FORE Systems moved into the Gigabit Ethernet space through its acquisition of Berkeley Networks. The message is clear: Vendors are moving toward unified service solutions that will include your voice and data networks.
With these mergers complete, will 1999 be the year of converged voice, video and data? No. Nortel Networks' Bay Networks will still be Bay Networks at heart. Lucent will still be Prominet and Ascend, and Alcatel will still be...Alcatel. But vendors are gearing up to offer a complete voice-data networking experience. As their business lines strategically align, you will see sales teams pitching single-vendor voice networks and data solutions. Three to five years from now, Network Computing will be testing voice and data solutions that share a common chassis, and you'll be considering these systems for your next enterprise backbone upgrade.
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