North American Network Operators Group
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Re: Force10 Gear - Opinions

  • From: Jo Rhett
  • Date: Thu Sep 04 13:11:05 2008
On Sep 4, 2008, at 10:03 AM, Paul Wall wrote:
You and I (and any real network operator) must have different definitions of
"forward at line rate". 

"forwards a gig-e full of 64 byte packets, random src/dst, when you
hook a smartbits/ixia up to it" is mine.  What's yours?


Forwards a mixed bag of small and large packets from tens of thousands of streams (not random)

1. at sub-millisecond latency
2. no packet loss at full line rate on multiple ports
3. deals appropriately with multiple ports at full line rate leading to a single port

And finally, is responsive to operator control even when full line rate is directed at switch itself.

Note the "not random" comment. People love to use the random feature of ixia/etc but it rarely displays actual performance in a production network.

--
Jo Rhett
Net Consonance : consonant endings by net philanthropy, open source and other randomness