Good news for 3com holders : "Ericsson Blazes Trail In Layer 3 Wilderness" - Wow !
February 16, 1998, Issue: 702
Section: News & Analysis
Jeff Caruso
A lot of IT Managers wouldn't dare remove the routers they have come to
rely on. But Bill Edwards did-and he insists his network is better off for it.
Although most companies are still experimenting with Layer 3 switching,
Ericsson Inc. has already pushed aside most of its routers and dropped the
new switches into its headquarters' backbone and wiring closets.
The results are lower costs, simpler management and a streamlined network
that's better equipped to run voice and video over IP, said Edwards, network
communications manager at Ericsson.
Ericsson built its backbone on four 3Com CoreBuilder 3500 switches that
handle the bulk of the switching, and two more 3500s that maintain the route
table information and serve subnets in its main building. The previous
backbone equipment-four Cisco 7513 routers-currently handles legacy FDDI
traffic. But as the company moves to Fast Ethernet, Ericsson will take the
routers completely out of the main corporate network, using them in
specialized, isolated networks, Edwards said.
"The beauty of the [Layer 3 switch] is I can replace conventional routers
without worrying about the software overhead traditional routers have," he
said.
Over the years, routers have taken on more and more functions, and router
software has been upgraded to support a dizzying range of protocols, security
and other features. But as companies standardize on IP as their primary
protocol and Ethernet as a LAN transport, the need for so many functions is
diminishing, and the raw speed of Layer 3 switches-which offer very fast
routing capability-is tempting. The rich software that once was the strength of
the router is now seen by some as burdensome overhead.
Just how widely the new class of switches will displace conventional routers
remains unclear, said Michael Speyer, program manager at the Yankee
Group. "Layer 3 switching has only just come out, and the people using them
to replace routers are definitely early adopters," he said.
But the simplicity can be alluring. Before getting the new switches, Ericsson
started systematically reducing the number of protocols it ran. Now, it runs
just IP, with some AppleTalk in isolated segments of the network. This step
made Layer 3 switching possible, since most Layer 3 switches support only
IP.
Ericsson is trying to eradicate AppleTalk and plans to convert the 2,000
clients at its Richardson, Texas, headquarters to Windows 95 and IP by the
end of the year.
Administering the core Layer 3 switches is simple, compared with the routers,
Edwards said. Because it's essentially a switch, the network managers can
save a copy of the CoreBuilder 3500's configuration somewhere else. If the
switch goes down, getting it running again is just a matter of copying the
configuration back to the switch, Edwards said, though that function hasn't
been tested in a production environment.
Although Ericsson is both a provider and vendor of ATM networks,
Edwards said ATM might not be right for every network. ATM is a big step,
and with so much legacy FDDI at his particular site, it made more sense to
migrate slowly.
"We're just not prepared to make that leap [to ATM] just yet," he said.
Still, Edwards said he wants to leave the door open. Right now, Ericsson
connects different campuses in the Richardson area using Fast Ethernet, but
the sites are probably too far apart for Gigabit Ethernet, Edwards said. That
means ATM may come into play as a means of increasing the speed of the
link. The 3500 can support Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet and ATM.
Though he couldn't quantify it just yet, Edwards said he believes the simplicity
can save him money. When something breaks, he no longer has to bring in an
expert who knows the ins and outs of Cisco's Internetwork Operating
System for routers. Instead, all it takes is a midlevel technician, he said.
According to the Yankee Group, routers are taking more time and expertise
to manage. During the past three years, the research firm found that the cost
of router support staff has risen 6 percent, while the number of routers that an
average staff member can administer has dropped from 15 to 13, Speyer
said. Plus, Layer 3 switches have about one-tenth the per-port costs of
conventional routers, although with a lot less functionality.
Still, moving to Layer 3 switches can be tough (Internet-
Week, Jan. 26). One of the biggest hurdles is figuring out what policies to
implement for managing bandwidth and quality-of-service (QoS) levels for
different kinds of traffic.
Ericsson hasn't encountered this hurdle because it hasn't yet implemented
3Com's TranscendWare network management software, specifically
designed for the switches. Right now, the company is using IBM's NetView
for AIX for basic SNMP management.
The company will have to start looking at QoS, however, because it plans to
run video over IP, enabling LAN users to hold videoconferences with remote
users over the WAN. In fact, videoconferencing was a primary driver for
Layer 3 switches. It has less latency than routers, so video can run over them
smoothly, Edwards said.
Copyright (c) 1998 CMP Media Inc.
techweb.com
Mang |
