ylan Corp. last week released Ethernet and Fast Ethernet modules for its fl
agship OmniSwitch LAN switching platform. It also revealed plans to ship next-generation Gigabit Ethernet and routing-switching products.
Xylan's Ethernet modules, which provide higher port density than their predecessors, are based on a new set of application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) that enable faster switching throughput and more powerful dynamic buffering. The Fast Ethernet module has 12 ports and costs $5,450, or about $455 a port. The Ethernet module has 32 ports and costs $4,950, or about $155 a port. Xylan's OmniSwitch supports a variety of other frame- and cell-based technologies, including FDDI, ATM, and token ring.
Washington Water Power Co. in Spokane, Wash., uses the OmniSwitch and is interested in the new modules to boost speed, says Jim Burke, telecom engineer at the utility. Burke says he's pleased with the OmniSwitch, but he notes problems introducing the switches into the utility's network. "We have a lot of Systems Network Architecture and NetBIOS traffic, which do a lo
t of broadcast," he says. "That tends to fill up the Media Access Control address bridging tables."
Xylan says it will use a second generation of its new ASICs to build Gigabit Ethernet modules, which it plans to ship in the fourth quarter. The gigabit links for the OmniSwitch will be able to carry token-ring frames as well as Ethernet frames, a spokesman for the Calabasas, Calif., company says.
Xylan also plans to ship products that enable so-called Layer 3 switching. Layer 3 switches do a combination of switching and routing, with the broad aim of speeding network throughput. In the fourth quarter, Xylan will ship client and server soft- ware to add support for the MPOA protocol for ATM. It expects to add support for MPLS-an evolving protocol that's being backed by IBM, Cisco Systems, and others as an industry standard-in the first quarter of 1998.
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ylan Corp. last week released Ethernet and Fast Ethernet modules for its fl
agship OmniSwitch LAN switching platform. It also revealed plans to ship next-generation Gigabit Ethernet and routing-switching products.
