Abstract

Black Box Corporation commissioned The Tolly Group to perform a comparison of key features of the Remote Ethernet Hub/Router vs. the Cisco 2500 branch office router. The test included comparison of router performance (both with and without com- pression), interoperability tests, and an ease-of-use evaluation.

Results show that the Remote Ethernet Hub/Router delivers equivalent performance to the Cisco 2500 in tests of raw throughput across high-speed, leased lines. In data compression tests, the Remote Ether- net Hub/Router outperformed the Cisco 2500 by up to 18.5%. Additionally, the Remote Ethernet Hub/ Router demonstrated ease-of-use advantages over the Cisco 2500. The Tolly Group also verified that the Remote Ethernet Hub/Router is interoperable with the Cisco 2500 in a number of common scenarios.

Summary:

This 1996 Tolly Group report compares the Black Box Remote Ethernet Hub/Router to the Cisco 2500 across throughput, compression, interoperability, and ease of use. On raw routing over a T1 (1,536 Kbit/s) link, both products delivered essentially equivalent performance. With 1,500-byte frames, each saturated the full-duplex link at ~3.07 Mbit/s aggregate; with 64-byte frames, the Black Box unit hit ~2.57 Mbit/s bi-directional. In uni-directional tests, both products saturated the link across frame sizes; the 64-byte case appears to exceed link bandwidth due to WAN/LAN header replacement measurement effects.

Compression & interoperability:

On 128 Kbit/s LAPB links, the Black Box unit achieved a 2.43:1 compression ratio for both IP and IPX versus Cisco’s 2.08:1 (IP) and 2.05:1 (IPX)—up to 18.5% higher. Results at 64 Kbit/s were similar: 2.43:1 (Black Box) vs 2.18:1 (Cisco IP) and 2.04:1 (Cisco IPX). Bridging compression reached ~2.40:1 on the Black Box; Cisco was not tested for bridging because it lacked LAPB bridging support. Interoperability testing over PPP verified successful IP routing across Class C networks and subnets and IPX routing with Ethernet II, 802.3, and SNAP framing, including connect, login, and file transfers in both directions.

Ease of use & methods:

The Black Box unit emphasized simpler deployment: auto-sensing WAN link type and speed, auto-enabling the LAN port, optional auto-loading config from a boot server, a menu-based config utility, telnet access, and a factory default IP for first-time login. Testing used frame generators on 10 Mbit/s Ethernet, measured throughput at a 2% loss threshold, and computed compression as effective throughput vs link bandwidth; routing used PPP and bridging used LAPB where supported.