ForeRunner
ASX-4000
Key Features
- 10 Gbps to 40 Gbps of non-blocking switch capacity
- OC-48c ATM ports—the fastest in the industry
- Up to 64 OC-12c ATM ports
- Architecture to support OC-3, OC-192, and Gigabit Ethernet
- Industry-leading ForeThought bandwidth management, including per-VC queuing, EPD/PPD, and shared memory buffering
- Advanced ForeThought signaling and routing features, including UNI 3.0, 3.1 and 4.0 support, ATMF PNNI, LANE and MPOA
- 4,500,000+ cell buffers
- Optional, redundant switch control processor
- Redundant fans and load-sharing AC or DC power supplies
Industry-leading Scalability and Reliability for Networks that Last
The ForeRunner ASX-4000 ATM switch is designed specifically to meet the demanding needs of large enterprise and service provider networks. It offers industry-leading scalability and resiliency, enabling customers to deploy a multi-service networking solution built to last.Network demands are ever increasing—more users, greater and higher speed applications, integration of legacy technologies, greater service availability—all on a common backbone. Network owners who are tired of throwing bandwidth band-aids at the problem are looking to ATM and backbone switches like the ForeRunner ASX-4000 for a networking solution that can scale over time to satisfy not only today's needs, but tomorrow's demands as well.
Networks that last though, not only scale, but support highly reliable, high-quality service—service that is based on industry-standards, intelligent traffic management and an Intelligent InfrastructureTM that tunes and heals itself. Network-level and node-level resiliency features let network owners rest assured that they can meet their customers' requirements for increased network availability.
The ForeRunner ASX-4000 is the core backbone component in a complete network solution that includes edge backbone switches, workgroup switches, LAN switches, multi-layer LAN switches, and WAN access devices. In addition, an Intelligent Infrastructure provides a complete solution for migrating existing enterprise LANs and WANs to a new scalable and resilient multi-service network.
Industry-leading Functionality and Scalability
The ForeRunner ASX-4000 features a non-blocking switching fabric that scales from 10 to 40 Gbps on an in-service basis in 10 Gbps increments. First-to-market OC-48c ATM ports and high density OC-12c ports enable backbone trunking for networks whose edge and server connections are scaling from 10 Mbps, switched 10/100, 155 Mbps, and 622 Mbps.
Designed to support more than 1,000,000 VCs, the ASX-4000 provides advanced traffic management and signaling capabilities such as per-VC queuing, more than 4,500,000 cell buffers, PNNI, Distributed LAN Emulation, and MPOA. These features enable the backbone to support thousands of users, while maintaining a high quality of service—even under times of congestion.
Even more, the ASX-4000 will support high-density OC-3c ports. That's the kind of scalability and capacity needed for serious ATM backbone networking.
Reliability and Fault Tolerance
The ForeRunner ASX-4000 is designed to support high service availability through a host of features that provide node-level redundancy and network-level resiliency. The ASX-4000 is intelligently partitioned to have no single point of failure. All components—power supplies, port cards, fan trays, switch control processors (SCPs) and switch fabrics—can be removed and inserted, or "hot-swapped", while the unit is in operation. This minimizes down-time during switch maintenance and network expansions, and allows users to upgrade individual components as opposed to the whole system.Redundant, load-sharing power supplies and redundant fans are standard. Power is available in AC or DC configurations for connection to continual backup UPC power systems. An optional, redundant switch control processor provides automatic non-service affecting failover for PVCs and PVPs allowing in-service software upgrades or processor maintenance. Additionally, the switch is architected for future support of optional 1+1 redundancy for switch fabrics, port cards and ports based on SONET/SDH automatic protection switching (APS).
ForeThought internetworking software applies intelligent discovery and routing techniques to establish least-cost primary and alternate paths for VC and VP traffic. In the event of a link or node failure, traffic is automatically re-routed to the best alternate path, and greater network engineering control is provided for user-defined alternate paths. Features such as fallback to primary path and connection pacing help optimize network recovery in the event of failures.
Maximum Performance
The ForeRunner line of ATM switches provides the industry's most complete traffic management package, including: Smart Buffers, ultra-high capacity buffers—up to 128,000 cells per port, Per-VC queuing, Packet Level Discard, dual leaky buckets for rate policing, comprehensive counters and thresholds, and Explicit Rate (ER)-based ABR flow control hardware.ForeThought Bandwidth Management allows high priority, delay-sensitive CBR (i.e., real-time video and voice) and VBR traffic to traverse the network unaffected by bursty ABR or UBR data traffic. These features are essential to preserve quality of service across connections on congestion-prone links.
Affordable
The ASX-4000 offers advanced reliability and performance features previously only available in central office ATM switches, but at a much lower price and smaller footprint. The ASX-4000 provides one of the most compact, high-capacity switching solutions in the industry. No other switch can boast 40 Gbps of non-blocking switching capacity and up to 160 SONET/SDH ports in a platform that is less than 5 feet tall and fits in a 19" rack.For instance, it takes six 20 Gbps switches to provide the same non-blocking switching capacity as a 40 Gbps switch. And with 20 Gbps switches, three-stage buffering increases latency and interswitch links waste precious VC-space, processor, routing, signaling and rack-space resources. Network operators truly boast about the ASX-4000's cost-effective design.