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August 2004 –
Concurrent Technologies announces the FP 100/008 switched
fabric board, complementing their range of CompactPCI® PICMG 2.16 and
ANSI VITA 31.1 packet switched single board computers. The
FP 100/008
is an "unmanaged" embedded Ethernet switching platform that provides a
low cost, low power, switching solution for telecoms OEMs and
integrators. Dissipating less than 5 Watts, it offers ten 10/100
auto-negotiating Ethernet ports, eight accessible via a PICMG 2.16 or
VITA 31.1 packet switched backplane. The switch core contains a
high-speed, non-blocking, layer 2, four traffic class Quality of Service
(QoS) switch fabric. Designed for applications that do not require
sophisticated features this board is available at a much lower price
than traditional, feature-rich switches. Also provided is PICMG 2.9 IPMI
system monitoring and hot insertion/removal to the backplane. The FP
100/008 includes VLAN security features for layer 2 firewall protection.
Typical applications include networking equipment, VoIP telephony
systems and blade-based servers.
Using the FP 100/008 Switched Fabric board with a
CompactPCI PICMG 2.16 or VME64x VITA 31.1 packet switched backplane (PSB)
enables a tried and tested method of implementing a LAN-based
multiprocessor architecture by leveraging readily available Ethernet
hardware, TCP/IP software, clustering and other network management
tools. Up to eight PICMG 2.16 or VITA 31.1 compatible computer boards
can interconnect via the FP 100/008 within the chassis. A second FP
100/008 could be added to the chassis for redundancy or increasing the
number of 10/100 ports. Using standard networking techniques offers a
simpler, more efficient method of remote booting boards within the
chassis, and simplified intercommunication between boards, particularly
where different operating systems and CPU architectures are being used
within the same chassis. It can also be used as a method of offloading
tasks from the standard CompactPCI or VME backplane, thereby improving
overall application efficiency.
The FP 100/008 sustains full duplex full wire 10/100
speeds on all ten ports with its 3.2 Gbps Layer 2 switching fabric to
eliminate congestion in even the busiest environments, making it ideal
for demanding network applications. Ports 1 to 8 are used for the PSB,
port 9 is via the rear panel and port 10 via the front panel. The switch
"learns" and caches up to 2048 MAC addresses in its filtering database.
It supports IEEE 802.1p/IPv4/Ipv6 QoS traffic classifications with four
priority queues per port to handle time-critical and multimedia traffic.
For security it provides Port based VLAN, or IEEE 802.1Q VLAN support
for up to 64 VLANs. Monitoring traffic can be achieved with the 40
statistics counters per port including support for Remote Monitoring (RMON).
The board’s health and status can also be monitored via an IPMB0
interface providing IPMI support compatible with PICMG 2.9.
For companies requiring basic embedded Ethernet
switched functionality in an industry standard chassis, the FP 100/008
provides reliable switching functions at a very low price. |