networkZONE Products for the week of May 17, 2004
Broadcom & Xelerated Say…
Dynamic Duo: Xelerated Teams With Broadcom To Bring
Advanced Services To The StrataXGS Ethernet Switch Architecture
Solution Adds IPv6, MPLS and VPLS support at $10 per Gigabit
Ethernet Port Intelligence for Next-Generation Enterprise and Metropolitan
Networks
Xelerated And Broadcom have released a joint solution that enables the
development of cost effective, future proof switches for Enterprise and
Metro Ethernet applications. The reference design is based on Broadcom's
StrataXGS family of Ethernet Switch chips and Xelerated's family of fully
programmable network processors. Together these chips enable networking
OEMs to build cost effective, flexible, high-functionality switches ranging
from stackable to chassis-based systems. These new solutions extend the
scalability and multi-layer intelligence of stackable Ethernet switches
for maximum network uptime, security and ease-of-management.
To complement the standard fixed Ethernet/IPv4 feature set provided by the StrataXGS chipset, Xelerated's network processor provides programmable feature set extensions including IPv6, MPLS and VPLS. These feature set extensions are provided as a "Virtual ASIC" application package covering IPv6 (unicast/multicast, access control lists), MPLS LER/LSR, VPN (VPLS PWE3/Martini) and IPv6 to IPv4 transition mechanisms. Like all applications implemented in the Xelerated network processors, wire-speed performance is guaranteed thanks to the NPUs' unique data-flow architecture.
With the new StrataXGS II switch family, system vendors can easily leverage their current investment in StrataXGS-based products to address the convergence of voice, video and data traffic in the enterprise. Superior multi-layer intelligence enables faster, more efficient and cost-effective migration to next-generation enterprise and metropolitan networks.
The new devices demonstrate Broadcom's commitment to the continued adoption of its industry-leading switch technology for mission-critical enterprise applications. According to IDC, Broadcom was the worldwide leader in Ethernet semiconductor products with over 50 percent year-over-year growth from 2002 to 2003. IDC's "Worldwide Ethernet Semiconductor 2003 Vendor Analysis" reports that a vast majority of that growth was attributed to the success of the StrataXGS and StrataSwitch product lines.
Today's enterprise networks require reliable multi-layer intelligence at wire-speed performance, enhanced security to prevent sophisticated network attacks, and the ability to scale networks while reducing the total cost of management. The new Broadcom® BCM5675 enhanced StrataXGS II fabric enables systems to scale from 96 Gigabit per second (Gbps) to beyond 1 Terabit in bandwidth - equivalent to 1000 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) ports or over 100 Ten GbE ports, providing the availability and redundancy that is essential to enterprise applications. The BCM5695, BCM5674, and BCM5665 switch processors add advanced multi-layer intelligence to the already feature rich StrataXGS Layer 2/3 switch family.
Service provider networks are migrating from circuit-based access to next generation packet-based access that will require highly reliable intelligent switching. They must guarantee service level agreements in order to provision voice, video and data services on a single packet-based link as well as administer and bill for these services. The new switch processors enable these services through advanced Quality of Service (QoS), granular rate limiting, double VLAN tagging and multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) features. The MPLS and double 802.1Q VLAN tagging features enables service providers to deliver transparent LAN services based on Ethernet, providing a cost effective replacement technology for legacy leased line networks.
"Merchant switch silicon has been widely adopted in fixed and stackable Ethernet switches over the past several years," said Sean Lavey, Semiconductor Program Manager for IDC. "The next big step going forward for this segment will be migrating into higher layer chassis systems that offers larger enterprise-class capability and support for more advanced QoS and security features."
"The StrataXGS II product family delivers complete multi-layer, wire-speed switching solutions, from Fast Ethernet to 10 Gigabit Ethernet. Its comprehensive feature set includes Layer 3, QoS and Layer 2 - 7 packet processing capabilities, making it an ideal switching solution for the converged networks of tomorrow," said Martin Lund, Senior Director of Broadcom's Enterprise Switching LoB. "Using the StrataXGS II switch architecture, system vendors will be well positioned to meet the emerging requirements of their enterprise and service provider customers."
Technical Information
Superior scalability and maximum network uptime come from high-availability
features such as a multi-stage switch fabric, dynamic insertion and removal
of stacking elements, fault-tolerant network protocols and the BCMX API,
which enables the management of all stacking elements using a single management
structure. The BCM5675 switch fabric, scalable to multi-stage fabric solutions,
integrates eight enhanced HiGig ports that can connect at full wire speed
to new switch processors, while being fully backward compatible with the
legacy BCM5670 fabrics. The configurable fabric switch offers non-blocking
switching capacity of up to 192 Gbps and supports wire-speed QoS as well
as intelligent spatial Multicast.
To keep intruders at bay and prevent sophisticated virus attacks in the network, the new BCM5695, BCM5665 and BCM5674 switch processors support multi-layer intelligence in the form of integrated security, MAC-based user authentication (IEEE 802.1x), and wire-speed access control lists. New Metro Ethernet features extend the security boundary beyond the enterprise into service provider networks with support for double VLAN tagging (IEEE 802.1Q), VLAN translation and MPLS Tunneling (Martini draft). Broadcom addresses additional traffic management requirements of large enterprise networks through support for policy-based rate limiting, end-to-end traffic control, IP Multicast capabilities, IPv6 and advanced Layer 2-7 classification and filtering. Many of these features come from the highly flexible ContentAware network processing engine in the StrataXGS switch family, which provides a common application platform for the entire switch product line.
The BCM5695 multi-layer switch processor, with 12 Gigabit Ethernet ports, integrated SerDes and one enhanced HiGig uplink, is pin-to-pin compatible with Broadcom's BCM5690, a highly successful multi-layer GbE switch. The BCM5665 is a single-chip, multi-layer switch processor that incorporates 4 GbE ports, 48 Fast Ethernet (FE) ports, as well as a HiGig uplink. The BCM5674 multi-layer switch processor, with one HiGig and 10 GbE port, extends the StrataXGS II feature set and copper connectivity to standards-based 10 GbE networks.
In addition to the new capabilities, system vendors can significantly
reduce time-to-market and improve return-on-investment through a common
software base across the entire product line using the field-proven Broadcom
Switch Software API. The common software base helps minimize software development,
maintenance and support for the vendors, which translates into more reliable
and available end user networks. A range of reference designs based upon
the new devices is currently available.
analogZONE Says . . .
I've always been a big fan of Xelerated's elegant programmable pipeline architecture (reviewed here in 2002, and again in 2003) and am very excited to see it find an application that makes such efficient use of its powerful network processing capabilities. Meanwhile, Broadcom has found an excellent way to apply its StrataSwitch (first reviewed here in 2002) architecture beyond the commodity L2/L3 switch market, and to provide a cost-effective migration path to IPv6. And the bonus for Xelerated is that it's now a part of a reference design that should get their product much wider market exposure.
Both halves of this platform represent relatively minor updates to the companies' existing product lines, but those changes are enough to create a solution that allows Broadcom's silicon to handle the routine L2/L3 tasks while providing a very efficient mechanism to share the more complex with the Xelerated chip. The short version of the story (I'll expand on it later) is that Broadcom is using the same HiGig pipelines (their proprietary 10-Gbit/s SerDes-based uplink interface) to hand off packets that require extra processing. In addition to supporting advanced features like IPVv6, MPLS, and VPLS at wire speed, Xelerated's chip can also implement enhanced flow monitoring such as IPFix, the IETF standardized (in draft review) version of Cisco's Netflow v9. This is a handy feature that allows unified management in large, complex environments with equipment from multiple vendors, by learning flows in the forwarding plane, collecting statistics, and passing them up the control plane to centralized monitoring resources.
It's interesting that Broadcom is not using their own MIPS-based SiByte processor (1225/1250/180 series) for this application. When pressed, they explained that RISC-based processors are fine for upper-layer (5 - 7) processing, but their general-purpose architecture don't have the punch and power/MIPS ratio needed for L2 - 4 processing where there is a high instruction-to-data ratio to support deterministic real-time/wire-speed processing. Xelerated's chip is just the opposite, with a pipeline architecture that trades off some flexibility for lots of raw speed to handle the repetitive operations that dominate these touch-intensive tasks.
Tightly coupling a network processor and a fixed-function switch brings a different twist to building advanced functions into mid-range boxes. Xelerated's chip allows manufacturers to develop a low-cost, high-volume basic platform that can be easily upgraded by adding a daughter card and some software. This approach gives you the most bang for your development dollar (one platform, many products,) and allows you to offer semi-custom high-end products with many of the cost advantages of high-volume lower cost boxes. Having a programmable element handle your advanced features also adds the flexibility (future proofing) to meet evolving standards through software upgrades.
Since the StrataSwitch handles so much of the low-level processing (including classification) the X10p is freed up considerably to do what it does best. Also, since it sits in a centralized location that sees all the flows, it can support nearly double the data rate it handles in a line card configuration. Xelerated claims that the current software load allows it to support all its features (IPv6, MPLS, VPLS, etc.) simultaneously -- for both ingress and egress at full speed - around 40 Gbit/s full duplex.
The first version of the joint design mates Broadcom's StrataSwitch to the Xelerated processor via a pair of external buffer manager chips (currently FPGAs) that form a bridge between Xelerated's SPI-4 interface and up to four of Broadcom's HiGig 10-Gbit ports. The FPGAs will evaporate with the arrival of Xelerated's X11 chip that has a set of on-chip HiGig ports plus more processing power and native large table support.
The total package from Xelerated is $500, including applications software to support MPLS and IPv6 (plus some additional memory to support the tables). Software to handle VPLS is available at a $10/port cost adder, IPv6 requires more memory, and VP6 is an additional cost. Depending on the StrataSwitch chip set you choose, you can spread the cost across up to 48 Gigabit Ethernet ports. But if further cost reduction is desired, you can even over-subscribe the chip set by linking one fully-featured box to one or more boxes that don't have the advanced feature card. This works well where a high percentage of network traffic is generic L2, and only a fraction is IPv6 and VPN. Such an arrangement is good for many enterprise applications where there are islands of power users that require high functionality amidst oceans of e-mail pushers. Using such an architecture allows for a pay-as-you-go approach that lets you upgrade with service cards as needs increase.
The result is a very cost-effective way to deploy advanced services in mid-range systems in both enterprise and carrier access equipment. Broadcom is very eager to compare it to Greenfield's recently-introduced IPv6-capable chip set that I reviewed a couple of weeks ago. Broadcom claims that they can deliver 48 ports of IPv6 with MPLS for around $38/port (not counting memory), while they estimate Greenfield's per-port cost to be around $46 in a 32-port configuration.
Now some of these claims are "bistromath*" since Broadcom's solution costs more as the port count goes down and both pricings vary widely depending on customer and application. I'd also argue that Greenfield is built with IPv6 in mind from the beginning and offers a lot in terms of flexibility, advanced features, and guaranteed wire-speed processing under any load, but the Broadcom/Xelerated solution cost does appear to have a compellingly low solution cost for many applications.
In summary, I think that this could be one of the most well-conceived pairings since strawberries and champagne. Xelerated may well be correct when it claims that this gives rise to a new business model that they refers to as the "virtual ASIC." It's really well suited to meet the needs of today's thin design teams found in most ODMs by limiting the development effort with pre-packaged feature sets and drivers. Because it can provide ASIC-like performance and high-volume cost points, but with much shorter turnaround times on designs, it's bound to be popular with ODMs. And given Broadcom's propensity for acquisitions, I expect that anyone who has even a small equity stake in Xelerated will be very well-off some time in the next year.
Excelerated and Broadcom say they will accommodate new developments and features quickly, and can also support custom development efforts for "extra large" customers. Current plans call for selling pre-packaged solutions, but an SDK is available if manufacturers want to "roll their own" solutions later.
Since the StrataSwitch is in at least the second incarnation, I imagine that the bugs that some of my spies reported in the first silicon are all worked out. This, and the fact that Xelerated's half of the solution has been in production for some time now yield a relatively respectable Vapor Index Rating.
Broadcom's BCM5675, BCM5695 and BCM5665 are sampling now, with the BCM5674 sampling in Q3, 2004. Broadcom would not provide detailed pricing, but I was able to learn that they typically offer a 12 port solution for $242, and $370 for a 48+4 switch (minus memory and the Xelerated processor).
Xelerated's advanced services chip set and virtual ASIC software is priced at $500 for high volumes.
* Bistromath (Bee-strow-math): Noun (Adjective: Bistromathic) -- A branch of mathematics invented by science fiction writer Douglas Adams which studies the unusual behavior of numbers in the bills generated by small European bistros. According to Adams the subtle principles at work in these modest establishments that generated unaccountably large numbers on customer's bills will eventually be harnessed to propel starships across the galaxy at supra-light velocities.
Data Sheets
Broadcom StrataSwitch
Xelerated X10q
Xelerated X11
Xelerated-Broadcom Enterprise Ethernet Solution
Reference Design Kit-II
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