The NetIron line of routers from Foundry Networks consist primarily of modular (chassis-based) offerings targeted to carriers, service providers, and large enterprises. The product family features multi-service core or edge-deployed gear capable of broadband IP, Ethernet and MPLS services.

Current entries in the product line include the NetIron Metro Router series (400/800/1500), the NetIron 40G, the NetIron 4802, the IMR 640, the XMR Series (4000/8000/16000), and the new MLX series (MLX-4/MLX-8/MLX-16).

The NetIron 4802 is a 1.5U offering with 48 10/100 ports and 2 Gigabit mini-GBIC ports. Features include support for 2 million BGP routes and 200 peers; IPv6 routing features; and Multicast Support including PIM Sparse/Dense, DVMRP, MBGP, MSDP, and IGMP.

The 400/800/1500 offerings are 4, 8, and 15 slot chassis offerings respectively; offering up to 480 Gb/sec switching capacity and 429 Mp/sec (Million Packets Per Second) performance when fully loaded with 10 GbE ports. Port types can include 10/100 Ethernet, Gig Ethernet, 10 Gig Ethernet, and OC-3/12/48c SONET/SDH. Port capacities depend on loaded modules, of course; and range from 6 - 28 OC-3/12/48c SONET/SDH or 10 GbE through 56 - 232 GbE ports and 144 - 672 10/100 ports. Features of the 400/800/1500 line include redundant hot-swappable components (management and interface modules, and power supplies); hot-standby and load sharing LSPs; traffic engineering with RSVP-TE; BGPv4; and centralized management via the vendor's IronView Network Manager (Web-based GUI).

The NetIron 40G is a 13U dual-stack (IPv4/IPv6) router that provides 480 Mp/sec forwarding performance and supports multiple routing protocols including RIP, OSPF, BGP-4, IS-IS, DVMRP, MSDP, PIM-SM, PIM-SSM and IGMPv3 (IPv4), and RIPng, IS-IS, OSPFv3, MP-BGP, PIM-SSM and MLD for IPv6. Each line module supports as many as 512,000 IPv4 routes or 128,000 IPv6 routes; and the 40G can be configured with as many as 32 non-blocking 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports or 320 non-blocking Gigabit Ethernet ports. Fans, power supplies, and management modules are redundant and hot-swappable.

The IMR 640 offers support for up to 8 line modules, 1+1 redundant management modules, and N+1 redundant (load sharing) AC or DC power supplies. It features a distributed 1.28 Tb/sec switch fabric, and, according to the vendor, can deliver up to 40 Gbps full duplex throughput per line module slot. Each chassis will consume a third of a rack; a full 7' rack can support 96 10 GbE or 960 GbE ports.

The XMR Series, available in 4 (4U), 8 (7U), and 16 (14U) slot flavors, are IPv4/IPv6/MPLS multi-service routers offering up to 64 10GbE or 320 1GbE ports per system. The routers feature the vendor's Foundry Direct Routing (FDR) technology for full Forwarding Information Base (FIB) programming in hardware as well as multiple routing protocols including IPv4 protocols (RIP, OSPF, IS-IS, BGP4, DVMRP, PIM-DM, PIM-SM, and IGMP) and IPv6 protocols (RIPng, OSPFv3, MP-BGP, PIM-SSM and MLD). MPLS VPN services are supported on all ports at wire-speed, including Virtual Leased Lines (VLLs), LDP-Based Virtual Private LAN Services (VPLSes), and BGP/MPLS VPNs as per RFC 2547.

Finally, the new MLX Series of routers is also expected be served in 4 (4U), 8 (7U), and 16 (14U) slot flavors with support for up to 64 10 GbE ports and offer capacity of up to 3.84 Tb/sec via a Clos fabric architecture. The MLX Series routers enable Layer 2 Metro Ethernet services based on IEEE 802.1Q, Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP), Foundry's proprietary Metro Ring Protocol (MRP), and Virtual Switch Redundancy Protocol (VSRP) with a capacity of up to 1 Million MAC addresses per system. MPLS capabilities and services include MPLS-TE, Fast Reroute (FRR), MPLS Virtual Leased Line (VLL), Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS), and BGP/MPLS VPNs (RFC 2547bis). Like the XMR series, the MLX series also features the vendor's Foundry Direct Routing technology, offering capacity of up to 512,000 IPv4 routes in the hardware FIB, and up to 2 Million BGP routes in the BGP RIB.

The new MLX series routers are expected to be available in February, with pricing starting at $30,500 (for a redundant, MLX-4 system).

Visit the Foundry Networks Web site for further information.

product submission by EITPlanet Staff

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