Summary of test layer-3 switches

Generally, each port of a layer-3 switch is used to connect to an independent CIDR block. However, to provide faster access speed, you cannot directly connect the input/output ports with different rates, it is also prone to packet loss.

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.

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 the stack feature. Check whether layer-3 switches support 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.

Currently, layer-3 switches generally adopt management methods, including software management through the console, remote management via 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.

It mainly tests the switch's ability to avoid faults and solve problems after a fault occurs, including whether layer-3 switches have 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.
Test Environment

The console is a Dell Latitude CPi notebook with a PentiumII processor with 64 MB memory and Windows 98 operating system. It is connected to SmartBits2000 through the serial port COM1. Run the corresponding test software on the console to control the SmartBits2000 to complete the test.

As network devices increase, a large number of back-to-back frames are generated in the network. For example, a remote disk server using the NFS protocol, such as a remote disk backup system such as RDUMP, if a request is configured like a remote tape access system, a batch of 64 KB data is returned.

For a relatively small network that traverses the MTU Largest Transmission unit such as an Ethernet layer-3 Switch, many data fragments are transmitted over the network. Because only data shards are merged when they are collected.

Even if only one Shard is lost because some network devices in the network fail to fully process Consecutive Frames, the sender will be in an infinite loop, constantly try to send a large number of data segments to make the receiver fully receive the data fragments.

• Vswitch technical network structure
• Analysis of Cisco layer-3 Switch stack connection
• Illustration of how a layer-3 Switch works
• Uncover important factors in Ethernet Switches
• Explain the exclusive technical advantages of vswitch Technology

As the scale of the Internet continues to expand, route updates will produce many frames. Therefore, the transmission speed of modern routers must be very fast. Because the loss of the route information data frame will produce an inaccessible network error message, the purpose of this parameter is to determine the data cache size of the network device.

For the storage and forwarding device, the last bit of the input frame arrives at the input port and the first bit of the output frame appears at the interval of the output port. For a bit-based forwarding device, the first entry of the input frame has reached the first entry of the input port and the first entry of the output frame at the interval of the output port.

The variability of latency may cause some problems. Many protocols are closely related to time, such as LAT and IPX protocols ). Future applications may be more sensitive to network latency. The increase in device latency will reduce the effective diameter of the network. We hope to eliminate the impact of data rate on latency testing. This test should only reflect the real device latency. The test should be performed on frames of different sizes without changing the device configuration.