WANTED: standalone non-blocking 48port + 2*1Gb uplink switch

[Martin Siegert]

Hi Judy,

I just went through the same exercise. Here is what I found:
Switches listed from lowest price to highest (approximately).

Intel 420T
Enterasys VH-4802
HP Procurve 4000M
Allied Telesyn Rapier 48
Cisco Catalyst 3548XL
Cisco Catalyst 2948G
...

Remarks: I could not figure out from Intel's web site whether you can
switch off autonegotiation on the 420T and force the switch to 
100baseT-FD. If it can't be done, I won't take the switch into consideration.
The HP 4000M has a backplane speed of only 3.8Gb/s. That doesn't seem to
be enough.

Cheers,
Martin

========================================================================
Martin Siegert
Academic Computing Services                        phone: (604) 291-4691
Simon Fraser University                            fax:   (604) 291-4242
Burnaby, British Columbia                          email: siegert at sfu.ca
Canada  V5A 1S6
========================================================================

On Tue, Jan 23, 2001 at 02:58:21PM -0500, Judd Tracy wrote:
> On Tue, 23 Jan 2001, Mike Mettke wrote:
> 
> > >
> > 
> > Fellow beowulfers,
> > 
> > I am looking for suitable switch candidates for a switch to put in our
> > soon-to-be beowulf. Money is a consideration, but secondary to solid
> > performance.
> > I went over the list archives, and although there has been some discussion on
> > this subject in the past, the focus was on 24 port switches, usually w/o 1Gb
> > uplinks.
> > The beowulf might see some mixed use (standalone programs, say large matlab
> > stuff), and therefore trying not to make too many compromises is essential.
> > 
> > Requirements:
> > - 48 100Mbit/s ethernet ports
> > - 2 1000Base-SX ports (for the uplink, we need those!)
> > - all ports full duplex
> > - max latency 20 microseconds (10 is better, of course)
> > - non-blocking switch fabric --> 2 * (48*100 + 2*1000) = 13.6Gbps or better
> > - 19' rack-mountable
> > - 1 or 2 RU high (ok, it would be _nice_)
> > - standalone is sufficient, stackable (suggestons?) would be nice
> > - port aggregation would be nice
> > 
> > 
> > I am currently shying away from stackable switches since they're usually much
> > more expensive and the internal bandwidth doesn't scale that well. The idea is
> > to buy a couple of those switches and then hook them up to a non-blocking
> > GigaBit switch via the up-links. Candidates:
> > 
> > Intel 420T
> > 
> > That seems to be the only one ....8-(. Intel has a shipping date March 2001 on
> > their web site, and I was wondering whether anybody has had experiences using
> > this switch or similar switches (suggestions wanted).
> > 
> > 
> > hope to hear from you
> > Mike Mettke
> 
> Try looking at the:
> Cisco Catalyst 2948G Switch
>   - 48 10/100
>   - 2 1000BaseX (GBIC)
>   - non-blocking 24 Gbps
> 
> Judd Tracy
> Institute for Simulation and Training
> jtracy at ist.ucf.edu
> 
> 
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