Abstract

In a series of switch interoperability tests, Foundry Networks, Inc. BigIron 4000 demonstrated full interoperability with 11 other switches from six different vendors. Results show that in Layer 2 tests of auto-negotiation and link aggregation, the BigIron 4000 interoperated with all of the switches tested. Furthermore, in Layer 2 tests, the BigIron 4000 interoperated across a single, full-duplex Gigabit Ethernet uplink with each of the switches that support this feature. Results also demonstrate that the BigIron 4000 interoperates with switches from each vendor when tested for Layer 3 IP Routing interoperability and it can exchange routing table information in compliance with IPX RIP for all participating switches. Finally, the BigIron 4000 passed all tests of an emerging industry standard called the virtual router redundancy protocol (VRRP) interoperability with five devices from all of the participating vendors. Participating vendors include Cabletron Systems, Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Lucent Technologies, and Nortel Networks.