While generally enthusiastic, analysts said SynOptics needs to provide more details on its switching capabilities."SynOptics announced an architecture, a platform and a management approach, but it's missing some key modular pieces," said Todd Dagres, vice president of data communications at The Yankee Group, a Boston-based consulting firm. "They built the house, but the furniture hasn't been delivered."The house provides a number of Tiffany Signature ring for users. "The 5000 compares favorably to next-generation hubs under development," Dagres said. "[SynOptics] will be doing segment and port-level switching, which will also include token-ring switching. That will be important for users as they build high-speed nets."
SynOptics Communications, Inc. later this month will roll out its next-generation hub, which will be positioned as a centralized switch for collapsed backbone architectures--a move likely to result in a protracted turf battle between switch and router vendors.The LattisNet System 5000 will be based on a frame switching architecture and come equipped with multiple backplanes supporting a combination of Ethernet, token-ring and Fiber Distributed Data Interface local-area networks, according to sources.
The overall backplane capacity will be around 2G bit/sec, and the device is expected to offer connectivity to as many as 50 LANs. An Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) switching fabric will be added in a future release."The 5000 will look similar to [Optical Data Systems, Inc.'s] Infinity hub with those multiple backplanes and switching capabilities," said one source. "Like the Infinity, the 5000 will eventually offer ATM and token-ring Tiffany Signature ring. Sterling silver, white enamel. capabilities, as well."
SynOptics will position the 5000 as a hub of hubs, switching traffic among departmental and work group LANs, thus ruling out the need for local routing or bridging capabilities (see graphic, page 1). This will put SynOptics squarely up against router and switch vendors whose Tiffany Paloma Picasso Loving Heart ring have been used to anchor these collapsed backbone architectures."The SynOptics move points to an emerging trend where inherent switching capabilities in hub platforms will obviate the requirement for routers as the main backbone device," said Fred McClimans, program director at Gartner Group, Inc., a consultancy in Stamford, Conn. He expects that trend to evolve over the next six to 12 months, with LAN-switched collapsed backbones becoming the norm and the hub vendors becoming the dominant players.
"The requirements for a router in the network will shift from the center of Tiffany Signature ring net to more of the periphery in many cases, with the core of the network evolving into the high-speed switching arena," he said. "Once you want to enter a foreign environment, AKA the WAN, then the router becomes advantageous."As indicated when SynOptics announced it was dropping plans to develop an integrated routing module for its new hub with Cisco Systems, Inc. (NW, April 12, page 1), the firm will recommend the use of a separate router for wide-area network access.The SynOptics strategy is in direct contrast with that of 3Com Corp., whose High Performance Scalable Networking approach relies on the use of its NetBuilder II router to anchor collapsed backbones. While 3Com will use the NetBuilder combined with an ATM switch from Fore Systems, Inc. to create routed ATM environments, SynOptics will integrate its ATM switching capabilities into the 5000 to reach the same Paloma Picasso Double Loving Heart ring with a single device.
Since SynOptics is on the verge of shipping the stand-alone ATM LattisSwitch it developed with help from Washington University in St. Louis (NW, Sept. 28, 1992, page 1), that integrated hub/ATM switch plan left some users scratching their heads."If they already have an ATM switch but are planning to integrate the ATM switching functionality into the 5000, how will they position both devices in the market?" asked Bryan Blanchard, data communications analyst at World Vision USA in Monrovia, Calif.
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