As part of its re-entry into the core switching and routing space, 3Com Corp. is rollilng out the next family member in its Switch 7700 line with a high-availability version.
The new 3Com Switch 7700R is the second chassis-based LAN switch offering to come out of the company's joint venture with the China-based Huawei Technologies Co. It features a redundant switch fabric that provides a second failover in the event the main switch fabric goes down.
"It rounds out the product for high availability and adds onto the existing 7700 enhanced security and performance features at a lower total cost than our competitors," said Charles Gallagher, referring primarily to Cisco Systems Inc. Gallagher is the director of product management for modular LANs for 3Com in Hemel Hempstead in the U.K.
The Switch 7700R provides total switching throughput of 96G bps and is 10 Gigabit Ethernet ready. No 10 Gigabit Ethernet switching modules are not yet available for the platform, but 3Com intends to add such modules this year, Gallagher said.
The eight-slot chassis can accommodate up to six switching modules, which can include a mix of eight-port Gigabit Ethernet modules as well as 24- or 48-port 100M-bps Fast Ethernet modules. The existing Switch 7700 is a seven-slot chassis that was introduced last June.
Along with the new switch, 3Com upgraded the switch line's optional advanced-feature-set software with new routing and management protocols. The switch line can now provide Border Gateway Protocol 4 and Intermediate System-Intermediate System routing, intended primarily for service provider-based MANs (metropolitan area networks).
The optional software pack also supports Simple Network Management Protocol Version 3, which provides more secure network management by encrypting passwords and management information for remote configuration. The pack also implements IEEE 802.1's Multiple Spanning Tree Protocol. That support is intended to help larger enterprise networks scale to support multiple virtual LANs, add greater resiliency and provide more fine-grained control of the network.
The new Switch 7700R will be available Jan. 30 starting at $25,995 for a starter kit that contains the chassis, power supply and switching fabric. The redundant switch fabric is $9,995. The optional software upgrade is due out by the end of February and will be priced at $4,995.
