Foundry Intros New High-End Switches

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November 15, 1999 (10:24 AM EST)

By Salvatore Salamone,

Foundry Networks on Monday announced several Layer 4-7 switching products whose main purpose is to serve in higher-performance environments under higher loads than existing switches.

The company is introducing ServerIronXL, a revved-up version of its Layer 4-7 ServerIron switch; BigServerIron software, which gives the company's BigIron chassis switch Layer 4-7 intelligent packet-handling capabilities; and the Management III Module, upon which the BigServerIron software runs.

ServerIronXL is built on a 400-MHz PowerPC CPU and can support up to 80,000 connections per second and 500,000 packets per second performance, according to Foundry. Like its predecessor the ServerIron switch, the ServerIronXL is designed to be used to load balance across servers, cache devices, and firewalls, as well as in what Foundry calls SwitchBack networking.

SwitchBack takes advantage of the asymmetric traffic flow through a switch that sits between users and Web server farms. Essentially, SwitchBack works by using Layer 4-7 technology to examine incoming requests and routing them to the most appropriate server based on a number of IT manager-defined parameters. These parameters can include server load, proximity of the data to a user, or other factors. The data returned to the user (typically Web pages) is sent directly to the client machine requesting the page. The data heading to the client does not need intelligent switching; rather, it needs a high-speed connection because of the volume of data in Web pages.

The other announcements from Foundry are also intended to help with SwitchBack. In the past, users of the high-capacity Layer 2/3/4 switch BigIron would need to use a separate ServerIron switch to add the Layer 4-7 switching needed to perform SwitchBack.

BigServerIron software lets an IT manager integrate the Layer 4-7 switching intelligence into a BigIron switch. The software runs on a card called the Management III Module, which was also introduced on Monday.

All of the Layer 4-7 products are available. The ServerIronXL is priced at $7,995 for an eight 10/100 port version, $11,495 for a 16 10/100 port version, $14,995 for a 24 10/100 port version, and $14,995 for an 8-gigabit ports version. The BigServerIron software is priced at $14,995 and the Management III module is $26,995.