Kalpana Inc has announced an Ethernet switch designed to overcome the problems of providing network monitoring and analysis of switched Ethernet segments. The firm has incorporated a network monitoring port, dubbed the SwitchProbe, onto the 15-port EtherSwitch EPS-2115M, enabling RMON-based probes or protocol analysers like Menlo Park, California-based Network General Corp’s Distributed Sniffer System, Hewlett-Packard Co’s LAN Probe or the Novell Inc LANalyzer, to monitor any of the product’s ports. It does this, says Sunnyvale, California-based Kalpana – soon to be acquired by Cisco Systems Inc – by mirroring that segment’s traffic through the SwitchProbe port to the monitoring device. While the Kalpana system gets over one problem of monitoring switched Ethernets – it obviates the need to attach protocol analysers to each segment – the system is still not a perfect one, in that only one of the segments can be monitored at a time. For large installations, however, Kalpana says that SwitchProbe ports from multiple EPS-2115Ms can be cascaded using a hub, enabling a single protocol analyser to monitor several EtherSwitch segments. In terms of its other features, the EtherSwitch is said to provide support for up to seven half or full-duplex segments, representing a total throughput of 150Mbps. It is Simple Network Management Protocol-manageable and comes with 10Base-T, 10Base-2, and 10Base-FL communications options. It comes in standard and enhanced versions, the latter model includes full-duplex support, Etherchannel capability and, from the firs quarter of next year, Telnet support. Prices start from $11,500 for the standard model, and $13,750 for the enhanced version.
