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Product Summary
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Enough already: That's probably the attitude of n
et managers who've prepared for gigabit networking by pumping up their backbone routers. After a while, there's only so much processing power they can throw at the problem.
One alternative is to buy a bigger box--and Torrent Networking
Technologies Corp. thinks it has the right one. The startup says its
IP9000 Gigabit Router can route IP at wire speed, since it keeps a
copy of the routing table on every port. It also boasts service-based
(Layer 4) switching for application flows, and it backs a broad range
of protocols--from OSPF (open shortest path first) to RIP to BGP 4
(border gateway protocol version 4). That last one, Torrent says, is
key for companies planning to set up extranets with trading partners.
And though the IP9000 is more expensive than Layer 3 switches, the
vendor claims it still has a lower price tag than the carrier-class
gigabit IP routers its design is based on.
Sounds good, but prospective buyers should keep in mind that the
IP9000 is an IP-only option. Of greater concer
n is Torrent's decision
to use what it calls a "loosely coupled background CPU" for route
processing. Translation: The route processor is connected to the
switching fabric via a single fast Ethernet connection--which could
make for a bottleneck.
Box Basics
The IP9000 comes in two versions: an 8-slot chassis with 10-Gbit/s
throughput, and a 16-slot chassis with 20-Gbit/s throughput. And
there's no shortage of switching options: A partial list of modules
that both boxes can handle includes 8-port 10/100 autosensing
Ethernet, 1-port gigabit Ethernet, and 4-port 155-Mbit/s (OC3) ATM.
The router has three basic elements: a centralized route processor,
which runs the routing protocols and distributes routing updates to
the ports; the core switching fabric, which handles per-flow queuing
and multicast switching at Layer 3; and ASIC-based forwarding engines
at each port, which perform per-packet route lookup.
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A Table on Every Port
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Torrent says the big advantage to this design is speed. The IP9000
distributes a complete copy of the entire routing table--including
flow-based Layer 4 information--to every port (see the
figure
). Route
lookup, packet classification, and packet forwarding all take place at
wire speed, no matter how large the network.
Torrent (Landover, Md.) also says the IP9000 can handle up to
200,000 routing entries (today's typical core Internet router handles
about half that), or 100,000 routing entries and their respective
Layer 4 UDP (user datagram protocol) or TCP port numbers. That helps
differentiate the router from many Layer 3 workgroup switches,
according to the vendor.
Packet Path
"One of the biggest bottlenecks on a router is the header
processing and how you find a route," says Hemant Kanakia, founder a
nd
CEO of Torrent. But the vendor says it addresses this problem via a
proprietary algorithm for matching prefixes, which it runs on the
forwarding ASICs.
Here's how the IP9000 puts everything to work. It receives a packet
at the MAC (media access control) port and looks up the IP header in
the local routing table while the packet is still entering the router.
It then identifies and tags the appropriate priority and queue
information, based on IP destination, source address, or application
flow. Flows can be identified and configured statically by using UDP
or TCP port numbers, or dynamically via RSVP (resource reservation
protocol). The device then performs regular IP routing functions and
forwards the packets according to the priority information. And just
like a regular IP router, the IP9000 also can be used for inter-VLAN
routing.
As for management features, the IP9000 complies with SNMP, features
telnet access and a command-line interface, and comes with a Web-based
Java interface for con
figuration.
Pricing for the eight-slot gigabit router (which Torrent plans to
ship by the end of the year) starts at $600 per fast Ethernet port; a
fully loaded version with 64 fast Ethernet ports is $55,000. The
carrier-class GRF 400 router from Ascend Communications Inc. (Alameda,
Calif.), by comparison, costs about $100,000 when fitted with 32 fast
Ethernet ports.
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