[Beowulf] layer 3 switches

[Mark Hahn]

> We have tested the 5500 series Nortel switches in our cluster environment and 
> have seen good performance with them.  I'm not so sure I'll buy 3Com again. 
> Their little foray out of real networking and then claiming to come back 
> didn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling.
>
> I've also got some Force10 S50's we've been using.  They work well but are 
> really too expensive for something like this.  With performance equivalent to 
> the 550 series, and almost a 2x cost premium, I'm not likely to go back 
> there.

the nortel 5510 appears to be similar to the HP 3400cl: 48 Gb ports 
with 2 10G uplinks (probably CX4 in the 5510, but available with other
media and some extra cost with HP.)

froogle leads me to think that the HP approach with 2x 10G CX4 would 
run about $5k, and that the Nortel switch is similar in price.