Abstract

Nortel commissioned The Tolly Group to evaluate the Layer 2 switching performance, resiliency and ease of use delivered by the company’s stackable Ethernet Routing Switch 5510, 5520 and 5530.

Tolly Group engineers measured the amount of usable Layer 2, zero-loss throughput as experienced by users. In addition, they reported the stackable switching capacity, or the total switching throughput “external” to users and “internal” between switch stack elements. The “internal” portion of this is not directly usable by end-user applications. Engineers also noted the latency and standard deviation (Jitter) of the three Nortel stackable switches in a variety of configurations and handing different traffic frame sizes.

Engineers also examined an Intelligent Auto Unit Replacement feature to verify that in the event of a switch failure within the stack, other switches continue to function and the dormant unit can be hot swapped without impacting stack activity. Lastly, Tolly Group engineers noted their observations regarding the ease-of-use in configuring and managing the Nortel stackable switches.