Abstract

Hewlett-Packard Co. commissioned The Tolly Group to benchmark its Procurve Switch 4108GL versus a Cisco Systems, Inc. Catalyst 4006 switch in competitive Layer 2 Fast Ethernet/Gigabit Ethernet forwarding performance tests. The Procurve Switch 4108GL is a high-density, high-performance Layer 2 switch that provides eight slots with copper interfaces. The Cisco Catalyst 4006 offers six slots with copper interfaces.The Tolly Group evaluated the steady state, zero-loss bi-directional (full-duplex) frames per second (fps) throughput of both switches using 64-, 512- and 1,518-byte frames. The Tolly Group engineers tested both switches in a variety of scenarios first using a mix of inter- and intra-module traffic and then using intra-module traffic only in a Fast Ethernet topology with 192 ports. Engineers also performed these same test scenarios in a Gigabit Ethernet topology with 48 ports. Finally, engineers tested both switches in a mixed topology of 144 ports Fast Ethernet/12 ports Gigabit Ethernet with a mix of inter- and intra-module traffic