reviewer’s guide HP ProCurve Switch Routing Switch 9304M HP ProCurve Switch Routing Switch 9308M Date 4/1/1999 Version 4.
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide Table of Contents 1. BACKGROUND ................................................................................................................ 4 1.1 HP’s Proactive Networking ...................................................................................................................................... 4 1.2 What is a Routing Switch?...............................................................................................................
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide 2.8 Flexibility.................................................................................................................................................................. 16 2.9 Reliability ................................................................................................................................................................. 16 2.9.1 Lifetime Software Updates (Best in the Industry) .....................................
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide 1. Background This Routing Switch Reviewer’s Guide will help network testing engineers at computer trade publications, resellers and end-user sites evaluate the merits of the HP ProCurve routing switches. 1.1 HP’s Proactive Networking HP proactive networking is an extensible line of products working together to provide the control network administrators need to deliver the network uptime and performance that their organizations require.
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide Pricing for each of these switches and modules is given in section 5. 1.3.2 Other Switches Available From HP Below is a complete list of switches available from HP. Separate Reviewer’s Guides are available for the HP ProCurve Switch 8000M / 1600M, HP ProCurve Switch 4000M / 2424M, and the HP AdvanceStack Switch 2000 / 800T switches.
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide HP ProCurve Switch 224M Fixed configuration desktop switch with (24) 10Mbps Ethernet ports and (2) 100Base-T ports (one fixed TX and one transceiver-based port) HP AdvanceStack Switch 800T Eight fixed autosensing half/full duplex 10/100Mbps Ethernet ports, all transceiver-based for top-ofstack applications. HP AdvanceStack Switch 2000 A flexible six slot high speed backplane switch for connectivity into legacy LAN environments.
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide 1.4 HP Switch Positioning HP identifies three different classifications for switches: node/desktop, top-of-stack and backbone switches. The routing switches are targeted at the medium to large backbone. Requirements in this area are high bandwidth, Layer 3 routing services, VLAN services, quality of service (QoS) controls, flexible filtering, and fault tolerance.
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide 2. Evaluation Features and Benefits 2.1 Feature Set Summary The HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9304M and HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M are store-andforward Layer 3 routing switches that feature: • A non-blocking Layer 3 architecture consisting of shared memory on each card, all interconnected via the backplane cross point matrix switch fabric. 9308M: 96 Million pps, 9304M: 48 Million pps. • Hardware wire speed routing for IP and IPX.
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide 2.2 Architecture 2.2.1 Hardware Architecture Summary The HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9304M has 4 identical slots, while the HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M has eight. Any of the modules can be put in any of the slots. The only rule is that there must be one, and only one, card with the management function installed in the chassis.
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide 2.2.4 Forwarding Engine The forwarding engine, a custom ASIC present on each module, uses the information in the FID to actually move the packets to and from either external ports or the backplane switch fabric via the shared memory. The forwarding engine also determines the priority queue (described in the next section) designation for outbound packets.
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide 2.3 Layer 3 Services Routing for both IP and IPX is done in ASIC hardware at wire speed. AppleTalk routing is done by the processor at a rate up to 300,000 pps.
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide switched ports is at wire speed, since it is looked at as Layer 2 traffic that just happens to be AppleTalk at Layer 3. • Routing Services • Routing Table Maintenance Protocol (RTMP) • AppleTalk Echo Protocol (AEP) • Name Binding Protocol (NBP) • Datagram Delivery Protocol (DDP) • AppleTalk Address Resolution Protocol (AARP) • Zone Information Protocol (ZIP) • AppleTalk-based filters (see the Filter section below) 2.4 QoS 2.4.
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide generate multicast path trees through the network so that a particular multicast stream is only sent on links that ultimately reach a receiver of that stream. This prevents multicast streams from being sent to parts of the network where it isn't needed. DVMRP builds and maintains a separate multicast tree for each of the offered multicast streams. 2.4.3.
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide 2.4.4.2 Layer 4 Filtering The 9300 routing switches can filter based on IP addresses, IP port number and IPX network number. More details are given later in the Filtering section. These filters can be used in permit or deny situations, allowing fine tuning of traffic based on Layer 4 information. 2.5 VLANs A Virtual LAN is a logical collection of ports or nodes that belong to a single broadcast/multicast domain.
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide 2.6 Port Trunking (Link Aggregation) Link Aggregation is the industry term for the ability to combine multiple coterminous links (links that begin at the same point and end at the same point) as one logical link. Link aggregation allows two HP ProCurve routing switches to be interconnected by 2-to-4 of the same type of links, with all links acting as one higher-speed link.
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide 2.7.2 Layer 3 and Layer 4 Filtering At Layer 3 and Layer 4, these filters available are: IP Filters � Inbound and/or outbound IP addresses � Protocol types (UDP, TCP, etc.) � Port numbers or ranges of numbers (ftp, http, etc.
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide 2.9 Reliability Overall reliability of a product is determined not only by how much time between product failures, but also how fast a failed unit can be repaired or replaced. HP offers a one year warranty, free basic-level phone support during this time, and lifetime free software updates. Some details are provided in this section. 2.9.
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide On-site upgrades to either business-day four hour support or 24X7 four hour support can be purchased through HP. Other fee-based services available that are highly recommended are hardware support contracts to cover the routing switches when they are no longer in warranty, and extensions to the basic phone support to cover network troubleshooting either during regular business hours or 24X7.
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide 2.10.1 MIB Support The HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9304M/ 9308M supports the following standard MIBs: • MIB-II (RFC 1213) • Ether-like MIB (RFC 1398) • Bridge MIB (RFC 1493) • Ethernet-like MIB (RFC 1643) • RMON MIB (RFC 1757) Groups: (1) Ethernet statistics, (2) Ethernet history, (3) Alarm, (9) Event, In addition, a number of enterprise-specific MIBs are also supported for such things as VLANs, and multiple bridge groups. 2.10.
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide 2.
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide 3. Performance Testing Routing switches are normally performance tested under a variety of conditions, at Layer 2 and Layer 3, for three main parameters: throughput/packet loss rate, congestion control and latency. Definitions for throughput, packet loss rate and latency are specified in RFC 1242. See http://www.rfc editor.org/. Unfortunately, there is no clear definition for congestion control.
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide For 100 Mbps environments, the crosspoint matrix backplane can handle the traffic at full wire speed. In this situation the traffic is limited by the total throughput of the 100 Mbps ports. 3.2 Congestion Control Congestion occurs any time more packets are destined for a particular segment than that segment can handle. All switches handle momentary congestion passively through buffering excess packets in memory.
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide latencies should be reported as LIFO. At any rate, latency figures should be labeled as to whether they are LIFO or FIFO. Occasionally store-and-forward routing switch latency will be reported on a FIFO basis. To convert FIFO to LIFO results, the time associated with the packet itself must be subtracted out. For 10Mbps Ethernet frames the following formula can be used: LIFO = FIFO - (packet length (bytes) * .
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide 4. Additional Information 4.1 ProCurve Networking Web Site Additional information, including the latest data sheets, design guides, white papers, product documentation and support information can be obtained through the HP ProCurve Networking web site. HP ProCurve Networking can be reached at: http://www.hp.com/go/procurve 4.
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide 5. Pricing All HP routing switches ship with HP TopTools for Hubs & Switches. Prod No.
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide 6. Appendix A: Performance Figures These numbers have been generated by Hewlett-Packard, using two Ixia 1600 testers from Ixia Communications. Ixia testers are used by a number of network testing houses and the press to determine performance numbers for networking equipment. In these tests, 64 ports were used for Gigabit testing, 188 ports for 100 Mb testing.. All ports were full duplex.
HP ProCurve Routing Switch 9308M / 9304M Reviewer’s Guide 6.1.3 Latency Test - Unicast Traffic – Packets Within the Modules 6.1.3.1 Gigabit-SX ports Port pairs active: 64 Latency test length: 10 seconds Port-Pair Latency in microsec (�s) Packet size (bytes) Average of all ports 64 7.01 6.50 128 7.58 6.56 256 9.63 7.58 512 13.58 9.48 1024 21.55 13.36 1280 25.52 15.28 1518 29.32 17.18 128 256 512 1024 1280 1518 FIFO 4 LIFO (Calculated) 6.1.3.
