You can always count on the cost of network equipment dropping over time. The slowdown in spending may give some vendors even more incentive to cut prices to make a deal. Still, some low-end equipment is becoming commoditized by companies such as Dell Computer, which has proven it knows how to make a good profit on commodity products. This year, for instance, Dell introduced a line of high-performance 10/100 and gigabit switches that are long on features but short on price. We tested one in our Real-World Labs® and found its performance uncompromising. The price per port is so inexpensive that Cisco and 3Com have stopped selling their switches on Dell's Web site.

Prices this low are compelling, of course, but keep in mind that price isn't everything. If you are going to scale your network beyond 100 or 200 devices, you'll run into problems using a commodity product. Dell's switches, for example, have low port density and lack management features.

You could save hardware costs by mixing and matching these low-cost devices with a higher-end solution, but keep in mind that this combination will add to your TCO (total cost of ownership)--the more vendors you deal with, the greater your support costs. It's a scary time to get too comfy with just one vendor, however. If you do, be sure you investigate the long-term viability of that vendor and install the standards-based versions of its products.

Enterprise Backbone

By next year, all the major vendors will have 10 Gigabit Ethernet products supporting the IEEE 802.3ae standard, which was approved in June of 2002. Likewise, the vendors that successfully sold you gigabit for the desktop will be talking about how to aggregate all that gigabit bandwidth at the backbone. Do you need 10 Gigabit Ethernet? For most, it's a simple decision: If you need 10 Gigabit at the backbone, you'll know it, and you'll pay for it--one 10-Gigabit port will probably cost tens of thousands of dollars, even if prices drop next year from 2002's prices of $50,000 to $100,000.

This is still an immature market, however, and you need to be wary of vendors that are quite willing to sell you 10-Gigabit ports but that haven't published independent, third-party tests that prove that their boxes can support the bandwidth, especially with ACL (access-control lists) and QoS (Quality of Service) features enabled.

Standards Xenpak Multisource Agreement: An attempt to simplify 10 Gigabit Ethernet technology by standards in accordance with IEEE 802.3ae. 802.3af Power Over Ethernet: Look for approval in early spring. IETF's Power Over Ethernet MIB Standard: A draft can be found at the link.

If you feel you need 10 Gigabit, consider restricting your purchase to products that support Xenpak interfaces. Xenpak cartridges are equivalent to the GBICs (gigabit interface converters) used for gigabit connections and will let you easily change out the four different types of optics defined for 10 Gigabit as needed. But beware of vendors that will support only their Xenpaks, as such practices defeat the purpose. Third-party Xenpack suppliers will drive down the price per port of 10 Gigabit and some vendors are understandably not excited about that.

Although no vendors have announced plans to upgrade their backbone chassis, it's probably just a matter of time. If you're going to do a major backbone upgrade, you need to know how old a vendor's current technology is and when its next-generation product is shipping.