Brocade BigIron RX

Modular Layer 2/3 Ethernet Switches

The Brocade BigIron RX is designed to support core switching requirements. With system redundancy built throughout the chassis to support high availability, these modular Ethernet switches feature interchangable half-height line modules. These scalable systems feature hardware-based routing, and can support up to 512,000 IPv4 routes per line module.

The BigIron RX ethernet switches feature Advanced Virtual Output Queue for hardware-based honoring and scalable QoS features, and the high-capacity cross-module 80Gbps link aggregation is designed to support high-bandwidth inter-switch trunking. In addition, the embedded sFlow per port monitoring supporting traffic monitoring that doesn't affect performance.

High Availability

• dual management modules with failover
• switch fabric element redundancy with millisecond failover
• stateful, hitless management failover (HMF)
• redundant power supplies
• distributed forwarding architecture
• IEEE 802.3ad Link Aggregation

Layer 3 Features

• BGPv4
• OSPF
• IS-IS
• Brocade Direct Routing
• Policy-Based Routing
• Multicasting, including MSDP, PIM-SM, PIM-DM
• VRRP & VRRPE (VRRP Enhanced)

Layer 2 Features

• Spanning Tree Protocol
• Rapid Spanning Tree based on IEEE 802.1w
• per VLAN STP
• per VLAN group STP
• Metro Ring Protocol
• VSRP - Virtual Switch Redundancy Protocol
• Topology Groups
• Super Aggregated VLANs (SAVs)
• PIM & IGMP snooping

Quality of Service

• Advanced QoS based on port, VLAN, source MAC, ACL rules, 802.1p priority, Type of Service, DiffServ or Rate Limiting
• Consistent, low-latency across packet sizes
• Combine Strict Priority and Weighted Fair Queuing, and configure iwht tail drop or weighted random early detection (WRED) operation
• Advanced Bandwidth Management with hardware-based enforcement of Committed Information Rate (CIR)

Unique Brocade Advantages

Cost Reduction

• typically 40% less upfront costs than Cisco
• uses 1/3 the power & cooling of Cisco
• maintenance costs are much lower than Cisco’s

Investment protection

• CLI is almost identical to Cisco’s, meaning Cisco training is Foundry/Brocade training
• enhancements like 10GbE, PoE are field-upgradable
• great for converged IP telephony, featuring interoperability with a wide variety of vendors, based on open standards LLDP & TIA LLDP-MED

Virtualization

• utilize VPN technology over MPLS in the LAN for 1/10th the cost of Cisco
• eliminate spanning trees
• designed for QoS & high availability with sub-50 second failover

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