Abstract

3Com Corp. commissioned The Tolly Group to compare the steady-state frames per second (fps) throughput of the 3Com CoreBuilder 5000, a 17-slot modular switch, with that of the Cisco Systems, Inc. Catalyst 5000, a 5-slot modular switch. The Tolly Group tested multi-stream Fast Ethernet performance and single-stream FDDI and Fast Ethernet-to-FDDI performance. The tests included steady-state throughput, and frame loss characteristics at wire-speed offered load. Testing was performed in April of 1997.

Test results show that the CoreBuilder delivered higher aggregate throughput and lower frame loss in all test configurations, including wire-speed zero-loss throughput at all frame sizes and in all configurations. By contrast, the Catalyst 5000 delivered less than 50% of wire- speed in several configurations, and less than 25% of wire-speed when switching 25 concurrent streams of traffic.