The trend of Ethernet switching technology

With the development of network technology and the popularization of information application, Ethernet switch has been used more and more widely. According to IDC statistics, 2001 domestic switch market value of 6.77 billion yuan, to 48% of the share of the router (46%) ranked in the first place in the network market. Thus, the switch has literally become the most mainstream product in the network market.

Three major factors contribute to the rapid growth of the switch market

The rapid growth of the switch market, in addition to the overall growth of the network market, mainly benefited from the following aspects:

1. Ethernet switching technology is becoming more sophisticated and costs are falling rapidly

With the increasing maturity of Ethernet switching technology, the cost of switching chips is also greatly reduced. At the same time, the integration of the chip has become more and more high, many of the previous functions need to be implemented through the peripheral components or software are integrated in the main chip, so that the structure of the switch is also continuously simplified, thereby further reducing the cost, which is very similar to the CPU in the PC situation. According to a rough estimate, from the beginning of 2001 to the end of the year, the average price of the switch dropped 20%~30%, while the low-end of the 24-port 10/100m switch from 3,000 to less than 2000 yuan.

The lower cost of the 10/100m switch allows the dual-speed hub to exit the market. Now, in addition to the very individual small network and the broadband community is still using the 10M hub, the 10/100m switch has become an indispensable basic equipment in the network.

2. Fiber Ethernet technology is widely used

Compared with ATM, Gigabit Ethernet has a significant cost advantage. Million Gigabit Ethernet 802.1AE standard is directly aimed at the backbone of the metropolitan area Network, defined the LAN and WAN two standards, so that gigabit Ethernet in the future backbone of the metropolitan area network with a positive competition with the POS technology strength.

It is based on the above factors, fiber-optic Ethernet technology in the backbone of the metropolitan area Network convergence and access are more and more widely used. Despite the disadvantages of 2001, the telecommunications industry still occupies a 40% share of the domestic network market, with Ethernet switches taking up a significant proportion.

With the help of telecom operators, enterprise users, especially in the ordinary education system of education metropolitan Area Network and the government's E-government City network construction, fiber-optic Ethernet technology has been more fully applied, because these industries for ATM, POS QoS, fast self-healing, such as carrier-class features not too harsh requirements, But very sensitive to price.

The growth of traditional LAN market　

In addition to the system within the metropolitan area Network, Enterprise informatization, education information and e-government construction require a large number of switches to form a local area network, which gives the switch market a stable foundation of support.

Development trend of Ethernet exchange

Based on the above application scope changes, the technology development of Ethernet switch also presents the following new trends:

1. Hundred trillion exchange into the mainstream, the gigabit market rapidly rising, the million trillion technology incipient

Due to the maturity of 10/100m chip technology, now the international mainstream chip suppliers rarely provide 10M switching chip, making the 10/100m switch and 10M switch cost of the same, so the 10M switch on the market has shown a rapid downward trend, 10/ 100M switch has become the basic configuration of enterprise network access layer.

With the rapid decline in gigabit Ethernet costs, gigabit switches are no longer an unattainable luxury, most businesses, including small and medium-sized enterprises, as well as primary and secondary schools, are using Gigabit Ethernet to build backbone networks.

For the metropolitan area Network, has done earlier analysis, the current hundred trillion and gigabit Ethernet has been widely used in the metropolitan area Network, and the future million gigabit Ethernet may become the backbone of the mainstream metropolitan area network technology.

Gigabit backbone, hundred trillion switch to the desktop has become the enterprise network planning in fact the standard, to implement voice, data, video and multiple integration to provide high-speed network infrastructure platform.

2. Three-layer Exchange rapid popularization

Switching technology to break the shared Ethernet 5-4-3 principle, so that the size of Ethernet and coverage can be greatly improved, so that Ethernet can overcome the numerous LAN technology and a solo show. The VLAN and three-layer switching technology (routing Exchange) overcomes the limit of network size in the pure two-layer switching network, further expands the coverage of the network and improves the performance, security and manageability of the network. Therefore, the three-tier exchange has been rapidly popularized in the backbone of large and medium-sized enterprises, and many small and medium sized networks have begun to introduce three-tier switching technologies, taking into account future developments.

In the past, the three-tier switch and the router is the difference between: three-tier switch using a single route, multiple forwarding, using the CPU and software for the first route of the calculation, and then the ASIC chip and other hardware according to the routing table for high-speed forwarding, the interface type is more single, mainly Ethernet, There are also fewer supported routing protocols and link protocols, and routers use CPU and software for routing, which is rich in interface types and supports more routing protocols and WAN link protocols.

The initial position of the two is that the routers are used for WAN connections, and the three-tier switch is used in the LAN core to replace the previous routers to achieve cross VLAN access. With the development of routing and switching technology, the three-layer switch is gradually developing to multi-layer exchange, such as TCP ports and DiffServ parameters above the 4th layer, which are processed by hardware. And the support of the routing protocol is extended by the initial RIP to the OSPF and even WAN Network routing protocol BGP in the large-scale network, and the interface type of the high-end routing switch begins to involve the ATM, POS and other WAN interface in order to meet the needs of the metropolitan area network. , and the high-end routers have borrowed more from the technology of routing switch, the hardware is used for routing calculation, and the forwarding ability is greatly improved. Switches and routers tend to converge at the high-end, and similar devices from different vendors may be referred to as "routing switches" or "switched routers."

It is also the maturity of the three-tier exchange technology, which makes the telecom operators dare to use Ethernet technology in such a large scale network as the metropolitan area network.