Bay Networks' Accelar 1200 Routing Switch Out-Performed Cisco Systems' Catalyst 5500 in Recent Tolly Group Evaluation
SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 18, 1998--
Independent Test Compared Performance, Throughput and Latency
of Accelar 1200 Routing Switch against Cisco Systems' Catalyst 5500 with RSM
Bay Networks, Inc. (NYSE: BAY) today announced the results of recent IP performance testing by The Tolly Group, a strategic consulting and independent testing organization. The head-to-head performance evaluation of Bay Networks' Accelar 1200 routing switch against Cisco Systems' Catalyst 5500 with dual RSMs (Route Switch Modules) focused on performance, zero loss throughput, and latency of the two devices over Fast Ethernet.
The results of The Tolly Group test (see document number 8264 at tolly.com) demonstrated that Bay Networks' Accelar 1200 routing switch:
-- Delivered flawless wire-speed packet performance in all zero loss
tests;
-- Generated up to 10 times the Layer 3 packet performance of
Cisco's Catalyst 5500; and
-- Consistently delivered latency below six microseconds in all
test scenarios, while the Catalyst 5500 initially offered 33
microsecond latency which steadily degraded as frame size and
load increased.
"The Tolly Group test results illustrate that the Catalyst 5500 is a Layer 2 switch retrofitted with Layer 3 functionality and not suitable for the purpose of driving IP forwarding performance," said Lloyd Carney, executive vice president and general manager for Bay Networks' Enterprise Business Group. "Products with packet loss, low performance and high latency will not support the demands of the latest intranet-driven applications."
In The Tolly Group tests, Bay Networks' Accelar 1200 routing switch provided wire-speed IP routing performance across a pair of Fast Ethernet ports and for all of the test scenarios (up to 10 streams), the Accelar 1200 device responded with near linear throughput. By contrast, the Catalyst 5500 switch achieved wire-speed performance only during the single-stream test, and performance fell off steadily after the four-stream test.
Results also showed that Bay Networks' Accelar 1200 routing switch outpaced the Cisco Systems Catalyst 5500 switch in packet performance. In a dual-stream test for Fast Ethernet, the Accelar 1200 routing switch delivered wire-speed performance of 297,620 64-byte packets per second (pps), while the Cisco Catalyst 5500 switch became saturated at only 168,162 pps.
In addition, while the Accelar 1200 routing switch delivered consistent latency results over a mix of multi-stream tests, the Catalyst 5500 switch served up unstable results when latency tests were run with more than two streams.
"Unlike competing products, the Accelar 1200 routing switch was designed to handle Layer 3 traffic, which is demonstrated by its performance and latency," said Kevin Tolly, president and CEO of The Tolly Group. "The Accelar 1200 routing switch test data revealed outstanding results in terms of performance and consistently low latency at Layer 3 by demonstrating the capacity to forward 10 streams of Fast Ethernet traffic at wire-speed without packet loss."
"The Tolly Group's findings confirm that devices which perform routing in hardware, such as Accelar, are designed to achieve Layer 3 performance at wire-speed, unlike Layer 2 switches with embedded router modules," added Carney. "The Accelar routing switches provide the performance, latency and throughput advantages that are necessary in today's high-bandwidth, Internet-driven networks, without the associated higher costs of routing."
About the Accelar 1200
The Accelar 1200 routing switch is an eight-slot modular switch supporting up to 96 10/100 Mbps ports, 12 Gigabit Ethernet ports or a combination of speeds. All ports perform Layer 2, Layer 3, and Layer 4 switching and provide flexible, policy-based virtual LAN and prioritization features at wire-speed. Aggregate bandwidth is over seven Gbps, and minimum-size packets (64 bytes or larger) can be routed or switched at more than seven million packets per second.
The distributed hardware-based architecture of the Accelar 1000 routing switch products enables them to provide capabilities such as: protocol-sensitive VLANs which allow on-going support for legacy protocols; priority queuing which provides support for Quality of Service and Class of Service applications; and IP Multicast support. These features enable existing enterprise networks to migrate easily to high-speed, high-function intranets without requiring a costly and disruptive backbone overhaul.
Unlike other proprietary approaches to improving IP performance, the Bay Networks Accelar routing switches leverage existing IP without requiring complex new protocols or expensive network upgrades for the existing routers, switches or adapters. The Accelar routing switches can be installed into existing networks, without intense configuration changes or rewiring. |
