Thursday, October 04, 2007

Raptor uses DWDM to bind switches together

Network World

Network Architecture




Network World's Network Architecture Newsletter, 10/04/07

Raptor uses DWDM to bind switches together

By Jeff Caruso

Raptor Networks Technology is demonstrating a cluster of its Ethernet switches operating as a single device over a DWDM network.

Raptor Networks is a small company that focuses on Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit switching. Its angle is what it calls the "distributed core" network architecture, where physically, geographically separate devices can function together as if they were part of the same box. Different Raptor devices communicate with one another through Raptor Adaptive Switch Technology, or RAST, creating a "virtual backplane" - in other words, the devices can be considered as slots in a virtual chassis.

At next week's Broadband World Forum in Berlin, the company will show a cluster of its ER-1010 Ethernet switches operating in this fashion over Dense Wave Division Multiplexing, or DWDM. DWDM allows many signals over the same fiber-optic line, each using a different wavelength of light to transmit over the line.

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Raptor says that with DWDM it can maintain all of the capabilities and features of the ER-1010 between switches, even at distances greater than 80 km. Features such as virtual LANs, access control lists and QoS controls can be set up at one of the nodes and RAST communicates those settings to the other nodes.

In the demonstration, the switches will use multiple, simultaneous DWDM connections over a single fiber.

RAST is proprietary, so this approach won't be for everyone. However, it was successfully implemented at L.A.Care Health Plan, according to this article. Raptor also recently signed the U.S. Department of Defense as a customer.


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Contact the author:

Jeff Caruso is managing editor of online news for Network World. He oversees daily online news posting and newsletter editing, and writes the NetFlash daily news summary, the High-Speed LANs newsletter and the Voices of Networking newsletter. Contact him at jcaruso@nww.com



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