networkZONE Products for the week of April 29, 2002
The Prestera-EX packet processors deliver enterprise switching and routing to drive Gigabit to the desktop with exceptional price/performance ratios and industry-leading features. The Prestera-FX fabric processor is the industry's first single-chip traffic manager and crossbar with integrated Serializer/Deserializer (SERDES), for low-cost, high-performance scaling with stackable and chassis systems.
"The rapidly shrinking price gap between Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet solutions is a compelling result of the proliferation of Gigabit network connections on desktop PCs and servers. With our Prestera devices, we are achieving new levels of value, both for our customers and end-users at this price point with higher performance and richer features," said Gary Smerdon, Marvell's Vice President of Marketing for the Communications Business Group.
Product Descriptions: What's New?
The Marvell Prestera-EX family of switches achieves a new level of system
integration that makes it both feature-rich and cost-effective. The devices
are capable of supporting simultaneous switching, routing and classifying
packets on all ports at non-blocking performance.
When combined with Marvell's market-leading Alaska PHY solutions, the Prestera-EX Gigabit switching solutions enable networking system manufacturers to break the $100 per port price barrier for Gigabit Ethernet switches. $100 per switch port is widely believed to be the inflection point for the wide adoption of Gigabit Ethernet switches for enterprise desktop applications.
The Prestera-EX family of packet processors offers:
The Prestera-EX family provides a complete line of Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet and 10-Gigabit Ethernet switching solutions with 100% software compatibility. The Prestera packet processors feature wire-speed multi-layer provisioning capabilities with switching, routing and traffic classification. The Prestera-EX120 device cost-effectively integrates 12 ports of Gigabit Ethernet, driving "Gigabit to the Desktop." The Prestera-EX130 packet processor, with a single port of 10 Gigabit Ethernet, is typically used for enterprise aggregation. Also available is the Prestera-EX110 device, with 48 ports of Fast Ethernet and 4 ports of Gigabit Ethernet-the highest density Fast Ethernet switching solution on the market today.
The Marvell Prestera-FX fabric solutions provide exceptional expandability and scalability for stackable and chassis applications. Using proven Marvell SERDES technology currently deployed by various tier one manufacturers, the Prestera-FX fabric solutions allow network administrators to manage an entire stack with ease, as a single virtual switch. Other key features and benefits include:
Intelligent queuing mechanism, which eliminates head-of-line blocking and ensures high-priority traffic is optimally scheduled across the stack or fabric;
Integration of a 50 Gb/s crossbar that eliminates the need for a separate crossbar and enables robust redundancy and load balancing in stacking and mini-chassis system configurations;
Integration of the same SERDES technology found in the industry-leading Marvell Alaska X 10-Gigabit Ethernet transceiver products. The robustness of this SERDES technology enables 20 Gb/s stacking performance working at distances of over 15 meters of low-cost copper cabling for stacking applications for over 60 inches of FR4 PCB copper traces in chassis designs.
The Marvell Prestera-EX and Prestera-FX development platforms are also now available. Featuring 24 Gigabit Ethernet ports and leveraging Marvell's Alaska Quad Gigabit copper PHYs which provide patented flexibility in the selection of either copper or fiber-optic interfaces, this design supports 24 Gigabit Ethernet copper ports with four optional small form-factor pluggable (SFP) slots. In addition, high-performance 24 Gigabit Ethernet and 48 Gigabit Ethernet stackable reference designs are developed to shorten system manufacturers' design cycle and accelerate time-to-revenue. Complete software, schematics, layout files and API software will be available in July 2002.
Comprehensive Software Support:
Layer 2 and Layer 3 enterprise software solutions for Prestera-EX and Prestera-FX
solutions, including switching, QoS and stacking capabilities, are currently
available from RADLAN, LVL7 and others. By combining Marvell's Prestera
enterprise switches with leading infrastructure applications, systems manufacturers
can offer complete enterprise switching solutions and accelerate time-to-market.
analogZONE Says . . .
A Giga-Bargain - Marvell Tailors Gigabit Switch Chips For Enterprise Applications
Marvell's introduction of the Prestera EX/FX series is a continuation of their aggressive strategy for client-side products that has already dropped the cost of GigaNIC below $100. With the EX and Alaska devices allowing switch vendors to track this $100/port trend, we may be approaching a critical threshold that will jumpstart the widespread migration to Gig Ethernet.
This product line has its genesis in the acquisition of Galileo technologies a few years back. Unlike many of the unfruitful couplings brought on by the acquisition frenzy of the late 90's, Marvell seems to have cleanly integrated Galileo's switching technology in a way that compliments its deep expertise in PHY-layer devices. Prestera represents their first collaborative effort beyond Galileo's original GalNet switching architecture. I originally reviewed it last December (2001), and found it to be relatively efficient, scalable and versatile. Back then, the first incarnation of the Prestera architecture was the MX series, intended to do high-volume, highly-intelligent layer 2/3 switching in Metro core applications. This most recent variant of the architecture is designated EX, for enterprise applications.
Although they share the same basic switching architecture, the EX chips differ from their earlier MX counterparts because they have a different mission in life. Whereas the MX products offer functions essential to metro core applications such as QoS, SLA, and policy enforcement, the EX chips have been tasked with slashing the cost of Gigabit connections to desktop. Surprisingly, they manage to deliver 10X the performance of 100-Mbit solutions at less than 3X the price while still delivering the functionality and advanced features necessary to an enterprise environment.
The EX design cuts the size of its silicon (and support RAM) by eliminating the MPLS capabilities, the support for huge numbers (millions) of flow and IP routes, and axing the VPN and billing mechanisms. Despite this, the EX still retains basic software compatibility with the MX series and still has many of the nice features that make it seem deluxe compared to some low-cost solutions. This includes its eight-queue-per port priority management scheme, that outshines the two-level queuing offered by National and others.
Marvell's EX also offers true layer-3 routing . They claim it's the first enterprise chip to do this, but I'll challenge this claim: I know that SwitchCore trotted out a sub-$100 L-2/3 solution a year ago. I think SwitchCore's solution is well-conceived and may still be competitive, but Marvell's chip set may offer a significantly lower cost solution by using low-cost DRAM instead of CAMs and SRAMs. Marvell is able to the eliminate need for ultra-fast memory by storing the routing tables (which need the fastest access) on-chip, and buffering the packets themselves in the slower DRAM - a very slick design trick.
While Marvell is not the first single-chip layer 2/3 Gigabit switch, I do believe their claim that EX is the first gigabit architecture to support on-chip classification without the need for a CAM or external classifier. It can look deeply into a packet header (layer 5) to determine its type and assign a priority within the 8 priority queues. Anther slick trick is how it can perform selective routing to different WAN interfaces depending on traffic type. This allows for instance, you to separate VoIP and multimedia traffic onto a higher-quality, but more expensive connection, while leaving "bulk" traffic on a less expensive service with lower QoS assurance. Another nice feature is the uplink's overspeed capacity. At 12 Gbits/s in, and 16 Gbits/s out, it has enough breathing room to support full-wire speed for all loads, plus support in-band messaging for management, monitoring, ad automatic address learning between devices.
The EX family includes the EX120 which has 12 1-Gbit ports and the EX 110 with 48-10/100 ports + 4 1-Gbit ports. Should you need a high-capacity uplink, the EX130 is a 1-port 10 Gig packet processor that feeds the Alaska 10-Gig PHY directly. With these building blocks available, the EX chips can be easily cascaded to let you build relatively big (24-36 port) workgroup switches, and even relatively serious rack-based enterprise iron, using the FX series of adapter chips.
The FX adapters allow interconnection of EX chips using their high-capacity internal crossbar switches and 16 channels of 3.125 Gig SERDES. They have intelligent queuing mechanisms to deal with head of line blocking problems and let high-priority traffic flow, even with blockage in low-priority flows. If you want to make good-sized rack-based equipment, the FX910 adapter includes a 50 Gig fabric, eliminating the need for a separate crossbar in the backplane. This allows you to build multi-card systems with a lower base price than those which must populate even a one-card unit with an external switch fabric. I believe. Should you want to scale beyond a 5-6-blade chassis, you'll have to use an external crossbar arrangement.
With customer samples expected in July, we can expect to see Prestera-powered 12-,24-, & 36-port Gigabit Ethernet switches from several major manufacturers by 4Q of this year.
The Marvell Prestera-EX products are available in three configurations and are packaged in a 929-pin PBGA (Plastic Ball Grid Array):
Customer sampling will be available in July 2002.
The Marvell Prestera-FX products are available in three configurations and are packaged in a 672-pin PBGA (Plastic Ball Grid Array):
Customer sampling will be available in July 2002.
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