networkZONE Products for the week of May 5, 2003
Marvell Says . . .
Marvell Targets SMB Networks With Prestera-DX Unmanaged
Gigabit Ethernet Switches
Prestera-DX Gigabit Ethernet Switching Solutions Offer Enterprise-Level
Performance and Features
Marvell is extending its Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) switch leadership to the Small-to-Medium Size Business (SMB) market with unmanaged 24-, 16- and 8-port single-chip Prestera-DX GbE packet processors. With Prestera-DX-based Gigabit switching solutions, IT managers can implement high-performance, feature-rich and cost-effective switches that not only meet today's SMB market needs but also provide a scalable platform for future requirements.
The Prestera-DX family of packet processors offers new levels of integration and performance targeted at desktop GbE switches for simple networks in the small and medium enterprise environment. The Prestera-DX devices achieve non-blocking performance and high integration by combining all of the Gigabit MACs, the packet buffer memory, a powerful switch engine, and SERDES in each port into a single chip. The Prestera-DX family of switches provides highly reliable and cost-effective, end-to-end GbE switching solutions that can effectively scale to the network growth requirements for data/voice/video traffic in small and medium businesses.
The Prestera-DX devices provide a cost-effective speed upgrade for the rapid adoption of Gigabit connectivity in small enterprise switches. The Prestera-DX switching solutions are designed to enable users to share a single Intranet connection in conference room settings, training centers and application labs. The Prestera-DX devices support enterprise-class Quality of Service (QoS) features, meeting demanding network requirements for Voice-over-IP telephony and multimedia at Gigabit speeds. In addition, with the Company's Virtual Cable Tester (VCT) technology from its market-leading Alaska PHY products, the Prestera-DX-based switches allow IT managers to determine the location of cable opens, shorts and impedance mismatch, reducing costly phone calls to equipment manufacturers' support centers.
"Marvell's goal is to make Gigabit connectivity easier and more
affordable for the fast growing SMB networks," said Tony Hsu, Marvell's
Sr. Product Manager for the Prestera Enterprise Switches. "Until recently,
only 10/100 Mbps (Fast Ethernet) switching products have been available
for desktop connectivity in the SMB market, but with the introduction of
the new Prestera-DX GbE switches, customers can now get plug-and-play, unmanaged,
small form factor switches with GbE speed and price points aimed at accelerating
Gigabit to the desktop."
analogZONE Says . . .
In rolling out the "DX" version of its "Prestera" product line, it's apparent that Marvell has taken a cold, hard look at what it will take to compete in the extremely cost-conscious "desktop/workgroup" market. Their entry is a family of pure-play, non-cascadable, 8-, 12-, and 24-port unmanaged Layer-2 switch chips intended to drop the cost of a tri-speed Gigabit products to the point where they start to displace 10/100 equipment in all but the humblest applications. Like the Vitesse 24-port switch also reviewed this week, the DX family pares costs by cutting the number of external components needed in a product, but still maintains a reasonable level of intelligence and features. Both components also claim to be "Layer-2+"capable, providing QoS functions based on inspection of header information up to Layer-4.
Marvell's DX does differ from the Vitesse offering in several important respects. For one thing, it uses the same shared memory architecture of its more fully-capable kin (EX and MX families), as opposed to the novel dedicated memory, shared-bus architecture used by Vitesse. The DX chips do however, move all memory on-chip to keep BOM costs to a minimum. Unlike the Vitesse chip, Marvell's offering comes in both an unmanaged (98DX81) and a managed (98DX80) version, allowing you to eliminate the host processor in bare-bones commodity switch products.
Cost has been the driving design goal with both the X80 and X81, but considerable effort seems to have been made to keep as much of the power and flexibility of the more costly EX and MX series as possible. In addition to the cost of the chip itself Marvell has paid attention to the overall solution cost. You can implement a full-up 8-, 12-, or 24-port design using two small power supplies, which will only have to pump out a maximum of 4 W, a power level that should eliminate or reduces cooling fan costs. Solution cost is pushed even lower with the PCB reference design which allows you to use a four-layer circuit board vs. six layers for Vitesse. And speaking of PCB costs, the 8-port and 16-port switch chips have identical pinouts, allowing a manufacturer to stock a single board for two different products!
In addition to cutting costs, Marvell has also managed to include at least one important feature that the Vitesse chip doesn't. This is the Virtual Cable Test (VCT) intelligence built into the MAC that allows a VCT-capable PHY to probe a connection. The VCT function - currently exclusive to Marvell - speaks to the PHY via extension of GMII and makes it generate diagnostic pulses that can be used to perform TDR analysis on the line it's connected to. The test, which can be performed during handshake or on power-up, can locate an open, short, or impedance mismatch fault to 1 m. Even in an unmanaged application such as the DX will find itself in, the VCT results can be displayed in code on inexpensive front panel LEDs. This very handy feature can save a hapless network tech many hours of work in identifying and locating cable-related network problems.
The Prestera DX does not appear to support all of the QoS and 802.3x protocols that the Vitesse part does, but its low cost does not mean you give up QoS entirely. The chips' "L2+" QoS logic supports four priority queues and is capable of supporting Cisco's 4-level Avid multimedia QoS architecture. This will probably become very important in residential gateway products that will be handling VoIP and streaming video applications.
While Marvell would not disclose precise pricing for the chips, would say that they would set the cost at a point where the overall BOM for a 24-port switch will be at or under $300. This will enable manufacturers to sell a $600 24-port switch - a price that makes the price point painfully close to Fast Ethernet.
The current offerings of the DX line are unmanaged, but managed version will be available soon, and include full statistics collection and management features for a few bucks more.
And if your application requires rock-bottom pricing, there are also Marvell's LinkStreet 5- and 8-port chip sets which intended for products aimed at the SoHo market, and off-the-shelf consumer purchases at Staples and Fry's. All the bells and whistles other than support for four QoS levels are stripped off these layer-2 unmanaged switch chips, but they still include the VCT cable test function. Pricing for the 5-port LinkStreet 88E6181, is $49 and $30 for the 8-port LinkStreet 88E6151, both in 1000-piece lots.
Space does not permit a full review of this product line here, but you can view the press release at http://www.marvell.com/press/pressNewsDisplay.do?releaseID=348
While it does not offer the manageability (they promise a managed version soon) or the full set of features that the Vitesse product offers, Marvell has done a good job in providing the basic functionality for low-end unmanaged Gigabit switches here at a price so close to Fast Ethernet that it becomes a "no-brainer" for the consumer to future-proof their network. And in today's cost-conscious market, this will probably win it lots of sales.
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