Layer-3 Switch Evaluation (1)

We have jointly discussed and developed a test scheme for horizontal evaluation of layer-3 switches, which includes six aspects: physical characteristics, functional features, routing protocols, switching performance, manageability, and reliability, the price per port of the vswitch is also taken into consideration.

Physical Features

This test is mainly performed in six aspects. The first is the appearance, including whether the indicator is set properly, whether there is a fault indicator and traffic indicator, whether there is a power switch, whether the attachment for rack installation, and whether the instructions are clear and detailed, whether the language is Chinese. The second is port configuration, which includes port number, port type, WAN/MAN port, 10/100 M Adaptive, FDX/HDX adaptive, and optional MDI/MDI-X port, whether the port settings are reasonable. Third, the modular design involves the supported modules, interface types, and scalability. The fourth is stack characteristics. Check whether the switch supports stack and stack capabilities. Then there is the base type, which can be fixed, modular, or mixed. The last is the hot swapping feature: including the connection module, upstream module, fan, power supply and other components.

Features

Focus on the following points:

1. Forwarding type: the forwarding type of a vswitch is divided into two types: store-and-forward) and fast-forward cut-through. By sending a certain number of Consecutive Frames of different sizes to the switch, test the forwarding delay and confirm the forwarding mode from the delay change.

2. filter: The vswitch sets a filter policy. By sending a certain number of corresponding data frames to the vswitch, check whether the vswitch supports Filtering Based on the port and MAC address and illegal frame Filtering from the forwarding result.

3. broadcast reduction: Broadcast storms on vswitches consume a large amount of bandwidth, reducing normal network traffic and significantly affecting network performance. The purpose of broadcast reduction is to effectively eliminate or reduce broadcast storms on the network. By sending a certain number of broadcast frames to the switch, verify whether the switch supports broadcast reduction from the forwarding results. In addition to broadcast storms, there are also other types of storms, such as multi-point transfer storms and spofs for unknown MAC addresses.

4. port trunk: whether port trunking or other port speed improvement technologies are supported to provide high-speed uplink.

5. 802.1d protocol support: most switches support 802.1d Spanning Tree ). The spanning tree technology can detect and eliminate logical loops in the network. Construct a loop manually and test the elimination of the loop.

6. VLAN function: whether to support VLAN, VLAN implementation standards, VLAN setting methods, and cross-device VLAN capabilities.

7. Traffic Control: whether the HDX and FDX traffic control standards are supported.

8. layer-3 switching capability: by sending a certain number of IP packets to the switch, check whether the switch supports layer-3 switching from the forwarding result.

9. Protocol Support: whether the IP protocol is supported or whether the IPX protocol is supported

Routing Protocol

Test the support of the two dynamic routing protocols RIP and OSPF commonly used in the LAN and the size of the route address table.

Exchange Performance

The exchange performance mainly includes the throughput, latency, frame drop rate, back-to-back of the four recognized indicators of the test results are shown in the table ). In addition, we also examine the Address Table depth, line-End Blocking, and switch's multi-to-one port transmission capabilities.

Manageability

Currently, vswitches generally adopt the following management methods: software management through the console, remote management through Telnet, Web management with strong humanization, and smart network management SNMP and RMON ), it mainly tests the support capability of vswitches and whether they are easy to implement. In addition, whether user access control has security measures and how security policies are also tested.

Reliability

It mainly tests the switch's ability to avoid faults and solve problems after a fault occurs, including whether the switch has certain redundancy capabilities, does the manufacturer provide related technical support websites, hotlines, and on-site support ), whether the product has passed national mandatory standards, such as electromagnetic radiation standards, various security standards, and considerations and measures for the heat dissipation of switches.