SCIENCE

Interface Masters Technologies has announced several new members of it's 10 Gigabit switch family. Niagara 2948 is the latest in high port density switching technology from Interface Masters, featuring 48 ports of 10G line-rate switching throughput in a 1U form factor. The system is fully manageable and is designed to integrate with datacenter, blade servers, Carrier Ethernet and Metro Ethernet devices, HPC clusters, enterprise storage systems, IT security appliances and central office applications. The system is built for optimal versatility enabling multi-mode, single-mode, extended-mode fiber media configuration and direct attached cabling for Copper SFP+ connectivity. The system enables speed flexibility as well allowing each port to transmit at 10 Gbps or 1 Gbps via SFP+ or SFP pluggable connectors. Based on 10 Gigabit Marvell's Prestera packet processor, the Niagara 2948 possesses a powerful and full-featured software suite that can be managed remotely via the management or console port, enabling full control over line-rate switching, routing and filtering.

The Niagara 2948 joins an established and market-proven managed switch product series from Interface Masters which includes the Niagara 2908, an 8 port 10GbE managed switch, the Niagara 2916, a 16 Port GbE Managed Switch and Niagara 2924, a 24 Port 10GbE managed switch. The product family ensures that the optimal combination of port density and speed flexibility are offered for each unique application without compromising the premium functionality, management interface and software platform that is available across the entire product line. The Niagara Managed Switch series enables 10GbE line-rate throughput to be realized in any datacenter deployment by leveraging the Marvell 10GbE switch chip's extensive feature set to significantly improve server efficiency, packet processing, power utilization, and data transfer speeds.

"Interface Masters is introducing the 48 10GbE switch following the growing demand and Interface Masters' commitment to 10GbE networks support," states Ben Askarinam, founder and CEO of Interface Masters Technologies. "The Niagara 2948 leverages leading-edge 10GbE technology based on Marvell's Prestera and delivers a versatile, scalable and powerful system with state-the-art capabilities."

The Niagara 2948 provides features that are essential to enterprise, datacenter servers and appliances including:

• Wire speed Layer 2 through Layer 4 Filtering Capabilities based on Protocol, Source and Destination IP address, MAC address, Port number and VLAN tags.
• 48 ports at 10GbE wire speed throughput.
• Support for 10 Gigabit SFP+ (small form-factor pluggable) optics cabling, including 10GBASE-SR, 10GBASE-LR, 10GBASE-ER.
• Support for 10G SFP+ Copper -- Direct Attached Cabling.
• Support for 1 Gigabit SFP optics cabling, including Single Mode (LX), Multi Mode (SX).
• Advanced Management Capabilities including Syslog, TACACS+, RMON, secure WEB and CLI management, SSH and HTTPS support.
• Basic Layer 2 switching features including transparent and VLAN aware bridging, IGMP, Spanning tree protocol, and link aggregation support.
• Advanced Layer 2 switching features including support for MPLS and advanced VLAN tunneling.
• Quality of service features including traffic prioritization queuing, policing, shaping, advanced flow, access and priority control, and rate limiting.
• Routing features including IPv4, NAT, and IPv6 unicast/multicast, virtual-routing and router redundancy.
• 1U rack-mountable chassis with dual redundant internal power supplies for maximum reliability.

Pricing and Availability

These products are available for evaluation and low volume production.