All four vendors' chassis support lots of redundancy. For example, all offer redundant power supplies and CPU cards. A bad power supply would cause no downtime, and a bad CPU would require just a minute or so to switch to the backup card. Although this is a lot quicker than installing a replacement card, the downtime would probably be enough to be noticed by end users.
Alcatel and Enterasys indicated they could upgrade some nonspecified features without any downtime, and all the vendors allowed storage of multiple software images, which can be handy when upgrading to a new image causes problems. In most cases, however, downtime still is measured in a minute or more when upgrading software or switching images because a reboot is always required.
We were encouraged that all the vendors offered GUI applications that could manage QoS from end to end. Although it's possible to set up QoS on the command line, the reality is that QoS takes a lot of expertise and time to set up and maintain on multiple switches and routers. The GUIs can handle ACLs (access-control lists) and store and update configuration and software revisions.
Another feature common to all four vendors is 802.1x support on edge switches. Although 802.1x is an authentication protocol originally developed to allow user authentication on Ethernet switch ports, it has been adopted for use with wireless access points, which cannot physically deny access to a wireless network. Only recently has 802.1x been embraced by switch vendors.
Overall, we were pleased with the amenities offered to C2G. The vendors support most of the features we sought; among these features are extensive VLAN support and standards-based multicast, which more than half of the readers responding to our poll have implemented or plan to install this year.
We requested pricing based on four scenarios: with 100-Mbps Ethernet ports in the wiring closet; with gigabit ports in the wiring closet; with 100-Mbps Ethernet ports in the wiring closet and PoE; and with gigabit ports in the wiring closet and PoE. The lowest-priced proposal was Alcatel's 100-Mbps setup at $268,275. Unfortunately, Alcatel didn't provide a 10 Gigabit quote, which in part accounted for the lower pricing.
The highest-priced solution, at $1,194,265, was Foundry's gigabit setup with PoE, followed by Enterasys' proposal, at $1,066,284. These were both chassis-based. The Foundry pricing scenario did take some liberties with our design, combining several wiring closets to reduce the number of chassis--if wiring plans has still been in the design stage this would have been a good suggestion, but that's a big "if" for a vendor to assume. Foundry also provided a much more affordable stackable solution for gigabit in the closet, at $654,865. The stackable setup lacked some features of the chassis solutions but did include Layer 2 and Layer 3 QoS as well as 802.1x support. Each stackable switch was connected to a Foundry chassis in each building with all the bells and whistles.
We were curious as to how much PoE would cost and were pleased to discover that it added only about $20,000, or roughly $20 per port--pretty insignificant considering the numbers we're throwing around.
Going from 100-Mbps Ethernet to gigabit in the closet roughly doubled the cost per port. However, when you consider that you're getting 10 times the bandwidth for only twice the price, it seems to be a good value. The big question, though, is how soon C2G will require speeds above 100 Mbps, given the applications it will be running and its next upgrade cycle.
Our judgment is based on the vendors' responses to our questions in the RFI. If C2G weren't just a figment of our diabolical imagination, the RFI process would be followed up by further information gathering, including meetings with the vendors and an on-site evaluation of products. While the company with the strongest RFI showing would have the edge going into this process, all four vendors are capable of providing viable solutions and each would likely have made it to the next step. We particularly liked the quality of Enterasys' entry. In fact, if we were giving a prize to the vendor with the most thorough, professional response, Enterasys would have nailed it. Enterasys was also the only vendor besides Alcatel capable of doing NAT (Network Address Translation) in ASICs. Furthermore, Extreme presented a solution that combined the benefits of Sonet and Ethernet, and Alcatel was the only vendor with PoE built into its switches.
We gave our Editor's Choice nod to Foundry, which demonstrated the best ability to meet all our technical requirements while maintaining a commitment to standards--a primary consideration. As we said in "Shoot for the Moon," standards are the key to maintaining flexibility, and Foundry is secure enough in its designs to allow its customers this openness. Foundry also provided the widest set of options and the most redundancy.
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