Plaintree Systems Inc will preview a new family of Gigabit Ethernet switches at this week’s NetWorld+Interop show in Atlanta. The new WaveSwitch 9000 family uses a non-blocking switch fabric that is claimed to provide throughput in excess of 16Gbps, and incorporate full redundancy of all critical elements and the highest switched-port densities available, according to the company. In a typical configuration, the 9000 is said to provide 16 Gigabit Ethernet ports, and 128 Fast Ethernet ports or 384 10Base-T Ethernet ports all of which can simultaneously run in full-duplex mode at wire speed. The Waltham, Massachusetts-based company further says the 9000 can be configured as a floor, building or campus switch. Plaintree says it achieved its performance capabilities through the use of four mix-and-match custom ASICs which have been under development for two years. The products also use the same interface modules as the company’s WaveSwitch 1000 and 4000 products, including ones for FDD I, 100VG-AnyLAN, 100Base-TX/FX, and WaveBus. With a multilayer virtual local network architecture claimed to be configurable by port, address or protocol, and support for Virtual Internet Protocol Subnets (said to provide administration-free virtual local networks in Internet Protocol networks), the product incorporates all nine RMON groups, and the company’s Simple Network Management Protocol-compliant WaveView Switch management. The 9000 is due to ship during the first quarter of next year, with the pricing to be announced nearer the time.
