Ethernet switch moves to "three-dimensional"

Three-dimensional out of the new

At present, more and more manufacturers to enter the Ethernet market, new brands and new products continue to emerge, it seems that there has been a trend of homogenization of competition. However, it is worth mentioning that the Ethernet switch in the market number of expansion, while the quality requirements are also constantly improving. Just to meet the simple connection and data transmission function, obviously can not adapt to future needs. Cisco believes that in the real market, the development of switch products is moving along the three major directions of speed, intelligent application and coverage, both for high-end modular chassis switches and for low-end fixed-port switches, which are in tune with this trend.

Speed is a major indicator of network performance. From hundred megabytes/gigabit to Gigabit/Wan Shao, Ethernet is an important milestone in the history of the 30. The advent of the mega-network era will bring a completely unimaginable new experience to people. At present, people's demand for bandwidth is rapidly increasing, such as the rapid development of the storage network required mass data transmission channel, a large number of mega-bandwidth convergence of the metropolitan Area Network, the continuous rich broadband applications required bandwidth support, large financial institutions of the data concentration, enterprise core business, ERP, CRM and other complex application extensions. Today, the mainstream structure of gigabit backbone and gigabit access will gradually transition to the gigabit backbone and gigabit access structure. Cisco occasion launched a new generation of switch products Catalyst 6500 and 3750 series is a new generation of gigabit/gigabit switch representatives.

Based on the practice and development trend of network construction, Cisco believes that the current application of switch technology in the implementation of QoS and security exchange, voice support will become another development direction. The Intelligent Voice Service of Ethernet switch can integrate data with voice transmission, the customer only need to maintain a set of unified network system, which saves the network management cost greatly. The Voice service on Ethernet can not only guarantee excellent call quality, but also be rich in value-added application development. In addition, as some switches begin to connect directly to the WAN, more and more switches have the ability to route. Given the next generation of Internet Protocol IPv6 in the future of large-scale applications, Cisco's new generation of switches also IPV6 hardware support.

Ethernet is expanding its coverage and is developing in the direction of wireless and long-distance. Cisco provides users with a complete wireless network solution, the wireless network positioning in the group users of the application, user-friendly office and use. On the basis of the wired network system, Cisco has established a wireless network, so that wired and wireless complement each other, so that the two formed a good integration and unity. In addition, Cisco's long-distance Ethernet solution extends Ethernet over a distance. This technology is the Ethernet on the telephone line, the VDSL signal is transmitted at the physical layer, and the Ethernet signal is transmitted in the second layer. It can extend the transmission distance, from the original 100 meters to reach the farthest up to 5 kilometers, especially suitable for the metropolitan area, and the speed remains unchanged, any cable can support, greatly facilitate the application.

System development

From an architectural perspective, Ethernet switches can be divided into fixed-port switches and module-chassis switches. The switching ports of the fixed port switch are basically fixed with the switch, and each switch port of the module chassis switch is inserted and modular, and can be added or subtracted according to the need. Usually, the former is mainly used in the low-end application of the network, the latter is mainly used in high-end applications. The products of these two systems will develop in the three directions of speed, intelligent application and coverage.

Fixed-port switches can extend the capacity by stacking to increase the overall speed of the network, but such stacks should not be physically connected. Cisco's next-generation scalable Switch Catalyst 3750 introduces an innovative technology smart stack (stack wiset), which provides an innovative tiered architecture that provides a 32Gbps tiered interconnect that can stack up to 9 switches, and enable them to achieve from the physical stack to the logical data flow management and planning of all-round unity. This integrated and optimized device overall allows customers to deploy voice, video, and data applications with greater confidence.

The most important development trend for chassis modular switches, which is used for the core of the network, is the gigabit, the key to which is the increasing performance of components within the chassis. With a more flexible modular structure, it can provide a wide range of functional modules beyond the basic connection. Cisco's new generation of Catalyst 6500 switches, the most introduced to the goal is its excellent mega-switching performance. It is equipped with a powerful switching engine and a built-in exchange matrix, and hardware to accelerate the implementation of high-performance embedded network management functions, MPLS, IPV6 and other intelligent services, hardware support, through the distributed forwarding technology to achieve up to MPPs performance. Cisco also developed a number of new functional modules based on the original Catalyst 6500, which are compatible with all existing Catalyst 6500 interfaces and service modules, providing a cost-effective way to migrate to Gigabit Ethernet.

The wheel of technological progress is still rolling forward, speed, intelligent application and coverage of the development of three breakthroughs, so that the Ethernet switch has leapt to a new level.