Abstract

Extreme Networks, Inc. commissioned The Tolly Group to evaluate the performance of its BlackDiamond 6808 Switch configured with 48 Gigabit Ethernet ports and to compare the results to those of a Cisco Systems, Inc. Catalyst 6509 switch with 256 Gigabit Crossbar Fabric, also with 48 ports. Engineers conducted tests of multicast traffic from a single multicast transmitter to 47 receiver ports, and in a mixed multicast and unicast traffic environment with 47 ports transmitting and receiving unicast traffic and one port streaming multicast traffic to the same 47 ports. The Extreme switch has a total of 10 slots and the Cisco device has a total of 9 slots. Even though both devices are able to support more than 48 ports per system, only 1300-watt redundant power supplies were available, so testing was limited to 48 ports.

Test Highlights:

Extreme Networks delivered non-blocking, wire-speed throughput across 48 gigabit ethernet ports for both multicast only and mixed multi cast and unicast traffic.

Extreme Networks maintained 100% of the theoretical maximum packets per second rate on all ports simultaneously.

Extreme Networks forwarded 100% of IP multicast packets transmitted simultaneously to 47 receiver reports compared to the Catalyst 6509 which forwarded only 15.3% of multicast traffic.

Extreme Networks processed nearly 70,000,000 64-byte packets per second of 50% unicast/50% multicast traffic compared to the Catalyst 6509 which processed only 30 million packets per second.