Switched fabric board embeds Ethernet switching

New from Concurrent Technologies, the FP 100/008 switched fabric board complements the company's range of CompactPCI PICMG 2.16 and ANSI VITA 31.1 packet switched single board computers.

New from Concurrent Technologies, the FP 100/008 switched fabric board complements the company's 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 telecomms OEMs and integrators.

Dissipating less than 5W, 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, nonblocking, 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 3.2Gbit/s 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 IEEE802.1p/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 IEEE802.1Q VLAN support for up to 64 VLANs.

Monitoring traffic can be achieved with the 40 statistics counters per port including support for remote monitoring.

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.

List price for the board is approximately $1000.

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