The market must be coming back

Tue May 21 04:33:32 UTC 2002

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-nanog at merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog at merit.edu] On 
> Behalf Of Gary

> that want 4 X 10 GbE on each module (8 slot chassis).  I 
> expect this will be a perfect 40G throughput since I've never 
> seen us do anything less than perfect (been working here 
> since August).

Oh phuleeese.... Stop drinking your own Kool-Aid(tm). To honestly
suggest that Foundry, or any other vendor for that matter, never does
'anything less than perfect' is nothing less than idiotic. If Foundry
does things so 'perfect' why do they have a TAC? Why do they have bugs?
Why do they even need to release new software ever again? Obviously what
is out now will solve every possible issue - its 'perfect' right? The
only possible answer according to your logic, is to support customers
who are 'doing it wrong' and need to be educated. 

Go find the nice black shirts that were passed out at Foundry's last
Kool-Aid fest. You are in obvious need of one. This is NOT the place to
post vendor FUD. All you are doing is making Foundry look bad, and
making yourself look even worse.

My apologies to NANOG..

.chance

"Mommy, my Kool-Aid tastes funny."
	- Katie, Age 7
	  Jonestown 10/18/78

> 
> Additionally, you would be the first customer I've heard 
> about doing standards based 10GbE on a Catalyst.  (feel free 
> to chime in if you're doing this... Can I bring my SmartBits 
> 600 to your site to test throughput?). Good luck!
> 
> Foundry has a few references:
> 
> Deployed: 
> http://www.foundrynet.com/about/newsevents/releases/pr4_3_02.html
> http://www.foundrynet.com/about/newsevents/releases/pr4_2_02.html
> http://www.foundrynet.com/about/newsevents/releases/pr2_11_02.html
> 
> Many others that we don't press release.  We've got these 
> blades running in production networks here in Japan that I'm 
> not allowed to talk about.  Also many other places.
> 
> Deploying: 
> http://www.foundrynet.com/about/newsevents/releases/pr5_8_02.h
tml

Performance:
http://www.spirentcom.com/news/press.cfm?id=87

>  Throw in the Cisco "Flamethrower" GBIC and I should be good for 50 
> miles.
Has anyone tried
> this?

Foundry Network's Long Haul (LHB: 150 km, LHA: 70 km) Ethernet optics
exceed Cisco's on GbE (ZX: 100 km).  I'm sure we exceed them on the ER
LAN PHY for 10GbE.  We've only tested to 85 kilometers (ER).  802.3ae
standard is 40 km:

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/020508/nyw068_1.html

Cisco's website says they can do the 802.3ae standard 40 km on the 1550
nm blade.  I'm not sure if the optics are changeable either:

http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/cc/pd/ifaa/6500ggml/

I doubt if there is a GBIC for 10GbE available.  We use the same blade
with changeable optics; however, I would not call the SR (300 meters),
LR (10 km), and ER LAN PHY optics GBIC's...

Moral of this story is that BEFORE you buy these blades from Cisco (or
anybody), test them!  If you don't have 10GbE SmartBits or IXIA, you can
use 1GbE interfaces and wrap them around until you get 8G (no need to
produced anything higher 'cause the Cat 6500 has an 8G throughput
limitation).  Don't test latency with this method :-).  I don't believe
the marketing from any company, not even my own.  I test, then tell.

I've personally never seen a packet drop at a steady 8G rate for up to
72 hours; however, one of our customers evaluating the 10GbE blades
reported 2 64 byte packet's were dropped in a 12 hour line rate test.  I
suspect they had bad fiber.

Gary Blankenship
Systems Engineer
Foundry Networks