Overview

Foundry Networks FastIron SuperX/SX family of PoE-ready Layer 2/Layer 3 switches are built to deliver a reliable and secure Ethernet and IP services infrastructure for a wide range of enterprise and service provider environments. Available in three chassis models, the scalable FastIron SuperX/SX offers the cost and operational benefits of a common operating system and shared interface and power supply modules.

The FastIron SuperX/SX enables enterprise customers to deploy a VoIP-ready infrastructure featuring the industry's most scalable and resilient Power over Ethernet (PoE) design and a rich feature set to secure and simplify the deployment of an edge-to-core converged network.

Service providers will benefit from the power of the IronWare networking intelligence, which features advanced Layer 2 services,  Foundry's Metro Ring Protocol (MRP) for rapid service restoration in ring-based topologies, VLAN stacking for tunneled VLAN services, and rich bandwidth management features for controlling network utilization.

The FastIron SuperX/SX family includes three chassis: FastIron SuperX, FastIron SX 800, and FastIron SX 1600. The FastIron SX 800 and SX 1600 support redundant management and switch fabric modules for enhanced system resilience. All three chassis support PoE over tri-speed 10/100/1000 Mbps interfaces. The FastIron SX 1600 supports up to 384 Class 3 PoE ports with N+1 power redundancy making it the most powerful PoE solution in the industry.

Switch management modules are available with integrated Gigabit Ethernet or 10-Gigabit Ethernet ports providing cost-effective system configurations that include high-capacity connections to upstream switches. The management modules include high-performance system processors and high-capacity memory for scalable networking with routing capacity up to 1 million BGP routes and 20 BGP peers.

The FastIron SuperX/SX family features a unique power distribution design for system and PoE power. The chassis are designed with independent system and PoE power subsystems. This design achieves optimal power operation and configuration, reducing the equipment and ongoing costs in comparison to modular systems that use a common supply to power both the system and the PoE elements. The power consumption of a line module's PoE circuitry does not impact the system power. Similarly, the power consumption of the line modules, switch modules, and management modules does not impact the PoE power.

Power consumption for the system and PoE are calculated, provisioned, and managed independently of one another. As more PoE devices are added to a switch, a simple power budget calculation determines whether another PoE power supply needs to be added to the switch with no impact to system power. The system power distribution and the PoE power distribution sub-systems are each designed for M+N load-sharing operation (where N=1 for SuperX and SX 800; N=2 for the SX 1600). This dual-distribution power design simplifies power configuration while enhancing system reliability.

The chassis can be configured for a wide range of power environments including: 110V/220V AC power, -48V DC power and mixed AC/DC power configurations. To scale PoE configurations, PoE power supplies are available in two ratings - 1250W and 2500W. When configured with four 2500W PoE supplies, the FastIron SX 1600 can support up to 384 10/100/1000 Mbps Class 3 PoE ports and still maintain N+1 power redundancy. This capability is unmatched in the industry.

The FastIron SuperX/SX family provides a scalable, secure, low-latency, and fault-tolerant infrastructure for cost-effective integration of VoIP, video, wireless access, and high-performance data onto a common network. The system architecture features a scalable and resilient PoE design and a low-latency cell-based switch fabric with intelligent traffic management to ensure reliable and high-quality VoIP services. A rich suite of security features, including policy-based access control, IP source guard, dynamic ARP inspection, and DHCP snooping, work in unison to control network access and shield the network from internal and external threats. The FastIron SuperX/SX family establishes a new class of convergence-ready solutions, enabling organizations to implement a secure, reliable, scalable, and high-quality infrastructure for total network convergence.

Back to top

Features

High Density Design

• Eight or sixteen slot chassis options.
• Three different configurations for the management modules which can come with either twelve Combo copper/fiber gigabit ethernet ports, two 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports, or no ports at all.
• Up to 384 ports of 10/100/1000 ports that can are field-upgradeable to support 802.3af standard Power Over Ethernet.
• Up to 384 ports of 100/1000 SFP ports.
• Up to 36 ports of 10 Gigabit Ethernet using "Small Form Factor Pluggable" XFP Optics that support SR, LR, ER, ZR, and ZRD optics.

Power over Ethernet

• Industry-standards based IEEE 802.3af PoE support.
• Choice of 1250W or 2500W power supplies.
• Separate system and PoE power supplies: Add Power over Ethernet without affecting the system.
• Internal, redundant, hot-swappable power supplies to ensure power for all ports using POE devices. N+1 POE redundancy for the 8-slot chassis and N+3 POE redundancy for the 16-slot chassis.
• Centralized power supply management
• Auto-detection to simultaneously support both POE and non-POE devices without configuration changes.
• Interoperability with multiple vendors' IP phones.

VoIP/Convergence—Advanced QoS and Bandwidth Management

• Advanced features for Voice Over IP:
  • Voice VLAN feature automatically places IP Phones in their own VLAN.
  • Auto-detects legacy and standard 802.3af powered devices.
  • Includes support for dynamic VLAN assignment for Cisco IP phones and Polycom phones
• Latency and Jitter—Wire-speed performance and a port-to-port latency as low as 5.5 microseconds.
• Advanced QoS—Enforcing traffic priority based on port, VLAN, source MAC, ACL, 802.1p, Type of Service (ToS) or DiffServ settings to prioritize business-critical flows and ensure that voice traffic is delivered with minimal jitter or delay.
• Each port has 8 hardware queues that support multiple queuing methods for added flexibility— Weighted Round Robin (WRR), Strict Priority (SP), or a combination of WRR and SP.
• Wire-speed, Fine-grain Bandwidth Management—Fine tune and control bandwidth consumption by using rate limiting together with the multiple queuing techniques for end-to-end QoS regulation of traffic flows across the entire network.
• Interoperability with Major IP Phones—Wide support for well-known IP phone manufacturers such as Polycom, Siemens, Cisco, Avaya, Mitel, and Nortel. Further enhance to automatically configure VLANs for Cisco's and Polycom's IP phones.

Advanced Layer 2 Features

• Extensive Spanning Tree Protocol Features
  • Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol based on IEEE 802.1w: Sub-second convergence using a pre-calculated failover link.
  • Fast Uplink Span: Four-second convergence on uplink ports on wiring closet switches.
  • Single-instance STP: Support for third-party devices that run a single STP instance
  • Per VLAN Spanning Tree (PVST): Multiple spanning tree instances within a single system for VLAN load-sharing and increased network reliability
  • Topology Groups: Goes beyond PVGST to scale all supported Layer 2 control protocols including STP, RSTP, MRP and VSRP while providing the ability to isolate the provider from any subscriber-influenced changes
• Virtual Switch Redundancy Protocol (VSRP)—Offers an alternative to spanning tree-based designs and provides sub-second fault detection and fail-over protocol for mesh topologies. VSRP works in conjunction with MRP to provide SONET-like resiliency required for critical Data Center and Metro Ethernet networks and protects against link or switch failures
• Link Aggregation based on IEEE 802.3ad—Logical links Containing up to four 100 Mbps, Gigabit Ethernet or 10-GbE Links to scale bandwidth and protect against link, port or interface module failure
• Metro Ring Protocol (MRP)—Provides sub-second fault detection and fail-over specifically for Metro Ethernet ring topologies as an alternative to spanning tree-based designs. MRP works in conjunction with VSRP and 802.3ad based link aggregation to provide bandwidth scalability and SONET-like resiliency in Metro Ethernet networks.
• Super Aggregated VLANs (SAV)—Allows service providers to decouple the provider VLAN domains from customer VLAN domains. SAV allows the provider to tunnel and preserve the s subscriber VLANs by stacking VLAN tags (Q-in-Q). SAV is also known as Carrier VLAN.
• Mirror/Monitor Port—Aids fault isolation with monitoring and troubleshooting of single or multiple switch ports without disruption to existing traffic flows.

Complete Layer 3 Functionality

• Industry Standard Routing Protocol
  • Scalability: FastIron SuperX M-1 supports up to 256,000 BGP routes, while the M2 supports up to 1,000,000 BGP routes and 20 BGP peers
  • RIP: Simple routing solution for small to medium size network infrastructures, enabling network managers to deploy routing and simple route summarization
  • OSPF: Flexible route propagation and route summarization for medium to large Enterprise networks, allowing network managers to control large IP routes. Includes Equal Cost Multi Path (ECMP) for increased bandwidth utilization and redundancy.
  • BGP4: Inter-Autonomous system communication controls for both internal and external (e.g., the Internet) can be easily enabled, giving network managers a single system to easily redistribute IP routes to many domains.
  • VRRP and VRRPE (Enhanced VRRP): Router failure redundancy, giving data center servers immediate recovery from any router failure. VRRPE extends VRRP by giving network managers traditional IP troubleshooting tools

Scalable Multicast Implementation

• Comprehensive Multicast Feature Set—Using hardware-based multicast features allow network managers to efficiently deploy streaming media applications for improved employee collaboration and productivity.
• Diverse Multicast Protocol Support—Selecting from IGMP, DVMRP, PIM-SM (Sparse Mode), and PIM-DM (Dense Mode) gives administrators the flexibility of supporting a variety of applications with complete interoperability to existing applications.
• Superior Multicast Scalability and Performance—Up to 8,000 Layer 2 Multicast groups with sub-second join and leave latency for industry-leading multicast performance and scalability.

IronShield Security Solutions

• Comprehensive set of security features for connectivity and access control.
• Multilevel access security on the console
• Secure Web-based management interface preventing unauthorized users from accessing or changing the switch configuration.
• Terminal Access Controller Access Control Systems (TACACS/TACACS+).
• RADIUS authentication.
• Secure Shell and SNMPv3 to further restrict and encrypt communications to the management interface and system.
• L2/3/4 ACLs and binding the ACL to TELNET, Web-Management, and SNMP interfaces.
• 802.1x Authentication, including multi-device authentication, and dynamic VLAN, ACL, and MAC Filter assignment for authentication clients.
• IP Source Guard which, along with DHCP Snooping and ARP inspection, help to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks from rogue elements.
• Private VLANs at the edge provide security and isolation between switch ports to help ensure that users cannot snoop on other users' traffic.
• ICMP and TCP SYN Rate Limiting allows the administrator to monitor, throttle, and lock out ICMP and TCP SYN traffic both to the management address of the switch and for traffic transiting the system.

Advanced Quality of Services

• Classification, reclassification, policing and marking the traffic prior to delivery
• Identification, classification, and reclassification based on specific criteria such as port, source/destination Media Access Control (MAC) address, 802.1p priority bit, source/destination IP address, Type of Service (ToS), Differentiated Services Control Point (DSCP) fields, or the Transmission Control Protocol/User Datagram Protocol (TCP/UDP) port.
• Flexible queue servicing utilizing weighted adjustable Round Robin (WRR), Strict Priority (SP), or combined SP with WRR.
• 8 hardware queues delivering complete flexibility of control over high priority applications such as voice and video.
• Rate Limiting including input-port fixed rate-limiting and rate limiting controlled by regular and extended ACLs.
• Rate Limiting policies can be applied on a per-port, per-VLAN basis, providing more flexibility to the network administrator in controlling traffic flow and bandwidth usage throughout the network.
• Support for up to 256 wire-speed ingress traffic policers with each policer supporting configurable metering with maximum and burst size settings, color aware and out-of-profile packet remarking or dropping.

Highly Available System and Features

• Redundant, hot-swappable management modules.
• Hot-swappable I/O modules.
• Redundant, hot-swappable, load-balanced, and distributed power supplies for both System and PoE.
• Advanced Layer 2 redundancy features:
  • Foundry's Metro Ring Protocol (MRP)
  • Virtual Switch Redundancy Protocol
  • Rapid Spanning-Tree
  • Per-VLAN 802.1d.
• IronShield 360 highly scalable, cost effective and automated closed loop security threat detection and mitigation solution.
• Includes sFlow™ – the industry standard for network traffic monitoring – to deliver hardware-based and real-time network traffic monitoring, inline intrusion detection, fault and performance management, capacity planning, security policing, and precise network traffic accounting on all ports from Layer 2 up to Layer 4.

Back to top

Specifications

IEEE Compliance

• 802.3 10BaseT
• 802.3u 100BaseTX
• 802.3z 100BaseFX
• 802.3z 100BaseLX
• 802.3ab 1000BaseT
• 802.3ae 10-Gigabit Ethernet
• 802.3af Power over Ethernet
• 802.3x Flow Control
• 802.3ad Link Aggregation
• 802.1d Bridging
• 802.1p/qVLAN Tagging
• 802.1W Rapid STP
• PVST/PVST+/PVRST
• 802.1X User Authentication with Dynamic Filters and VLAN assignment
• 802.3 Ethernet Like MIB
• Repeater MIB
• Ethernet Interface MIB
• SNMPv1, v2c, and v3
• SNMP MIB II

RFC Compliance - BGPv4

• RFC 1269, 1657 BGP3 and BGP4 MIBs
• RFC 1745 OSPF Interactions
• RFC 1771 BGP4
• RFC 1965 BGP4 Confederations
• RFC 1997 Communities and Attributes
• RFC 2385 MD5
• Authentication of BGP Session
• RFC 2439 Route Flap Dampening
• RFC 2796 Route Reflection
• RFC 2842 BGP4 Capabilities

RFC Compliance - OSPF

• RFC 1583 and 2328 OSPF v2
• RFC 1587 OSPF NSSA
• RFC 1745 OSPF Interactions
• RFC 1765 OSPF Database Overflow
• RFC 1850 OSPF Traps
• RFC 1850 OSPF v2 MIB
• RFC 2154 OSPF w/Digital Signatures (Password, MD-5)
• RFC 2178 OSPF
• RFC 2370 OSPF Opaque LSA Options
• RFC 2385 TCP MD5
• RFC 2439 Route Flap Damping
• RFC 2842 Capabilities Advertisement
• RFC 2918 Route Refresh Capability

RFC Compliance - RIP

• RFC 1058 RIP v1
• RFC 1723 RIP v2
• RFC 1812 RIP Requirements

RFC Compliance - IP Multicast

• DVMRP v3-07
• PIM-DM v1
• RFC 1112 IGMP
• RFC 1122 DVMRP Host Requirements
• RFC 1122 Host Extensions
• RFC 1256 ICMP Router Discovery Protocol
• RFC 2236 IGMP v2
• RFC 2362 PIM-SM

RFC Compliance - General Routing Protocols

• RFC 768 UDP
• RFC 783 TFTP
• RFC 791 IP
• RFC 792 ICMP
• RFC 793 TCP
• RFC 826 ARP
• RFC 854 TELNET
• RFC 894 IP over Ethernet
• RFC 903 RARP
• RFC 906 TFTP Bootstrap
• RFC 951 BootP
• RFC 1027 Proxy ARP
• RFC 1122 Host Requirements
• RFC 1256 IRDP
• RFC 1519 CIDR
• RFC 1541, 1542 & 2131 BootP/DHCP Helper
• RFC 1542 BootP Extensions
• RFC 1591 DNS (client)
• RFC 1812 General Routing
• RFC 2338VRRP

RFC Compliance - Others

• RFC 1157 SNMPv1
• RFC 1191 Path MTU Discovery
• RFC 1215 SNMP Generic Traps
• RFC 1354 IP Forwarding MIB
• RFC 1573 SNMP MIB II
• RFC 1757 RMON Groups 1, 2, 3, 9
• RFC 1905, 1906 SNMPv2c
• RFC 4330 SNTP
• RFC 2068 HTTP
• RFC 2138 RADIUS
• RFC 3176 sFlow
• RFC 3411 SNMPv3 Framework
• RFC 3412 SNMPv3 Processing
• RFC 3414 SNMPv3 USM
• RFC 3415 SNMPv3VACM
• TACACS+ v1.78
• MRP I, MRP II (Metro Ring Protocol)
• UDLD (Uni-directional Link Detection)
• IGMP Snooping (v1, v2, v3)
• RFC 2674 P-Bridge and Q-Bridge
• Jumbo Frame with Gigabit Ethernet

System Management

• IronView Network Manager (INM) Web-based graphical user interface
• Industry Standard Command Line Interface (CLI)
• Secure Copy
• Telnet and SSHv2
• SNMP v1, v2 and v3
• HTTP and HTTPS
• RMON HP OpenView for Sun Solaris, HP-UX, IBM's AIX, and Windows NT
• Virtual Cable Tester

Element Security Options

• AAA
• RADIUS
• Secure Shell (SSHv2)
• Secure Copy (SCP)
• TACACS/ TACACS+
• Username/ Password (Challenge and Response)
• Bi-level Access Mode (Standard and EXEC Level)
• Protection for Denial of Service attacks, such as TCP SYN or Smurf Attacks

Physical Design

• ETSI ETS 300 119-4, Engineering Requirements for Subracks in misc Racks and Cabinets
• ANSI/EIA-310-D, Cabinets, Racks, Panels, and Associated Equipment

Physical Dimensions

• FastIron SuperX
  10.46in (H) x 17.5in (D) x 17.45in (W)
  26.6cm (H) x 44.4cm (D) x 44.3cm (W)
• FastIron SX 800
  10.46in (H) x 19.5in (D) x 17.45in (W)
  26.6cm (H) x 49.5cm (D) x 44.3cm (W)
• FastIron SX 1600
  24.46in (H) x 22.55in (D) x 17.2in (W)
  62.1cm (H) x 57.3cm (D) x 43.7cm (W)

Weight (Fully Loaded)

• FastIron SuperX and SX 800
  70 lbs (31 kg)
• FastIron SX 1600
  196 lbs (88.6 kg)

Environmental

• Operating Temperature: 0 °C to 40 °C (32 °F to 104 °F)
• Relative Humidity: 5 to 90%, @40 °C (104 °F,non condensing)
• Operating Altitude: 6600 ft (2,000 m)
• Storage Temperature: -25 °C to 70 °C (-13 °F to 158 °F)
• Storage Humidity: 95% maximum relative humidity, non-condensing
• Storage Altitude: 15,000 ft (4,500 m) maximum
• EU 2002/95/EC RoHS Directive

MTBF

• SuperX Chassis, Fan Tray, 1 P/S: 269,386 hrs
• SX 800 Chassis, Fan Tray, 1 P/S: 142,786 hrs
• SX 800 Chassis, Fan Tray, 2 P/S: 230,584 hrs
• SX1600 Chassis, Fan Tray, 2 P/S: 99,908 hrs
• SX1600 Chassis, Fan Tray, 4 P/S: 213,865 hrs
• M1 Management Module: 287,664 hrs
• M2 Management Module: 287,664 hrs
• M3 Management Module, Zero ports: 534,522 hrs
• M4 Management Module, 2x10-GbE ports: 269,436 hrs
• 24-port 10/100/1000 Copper Module: 352,103 hrs
• 24-port SFP Module: 348,204 hrs
• 2-port 10-GbE Module: 464,938 hrs

SuperX System Power Specifications

• System Power Supply (SX-ACPWR, SX-DCPWR)
  • -40 – -60VDC Consumption (Amps): 36A
  • 100 – 120VAC Consumption (Amps): 14.3A
  • 200 – 240VAC Consumption (Amps): 7.2A
  • AC Frequency: 50 – 60Hz
  • Max BTU: 4874 BTU/Hr
  • Max Watts (Output): 1200W
  • Max Watts (Input): 1428W
• 1250W PoE Power Supply
  • 100 – 120VAC Consumption (Amps): 14A
  • 200 – 240VAC Consumption (Amps): 7A
  • AC Frequency: 50 – 60Hz
  • Max BTU: 4736 BTU/Hr
  • Max Watts (Output): 1250W
  • Max Watts (Input): 1388W
• 2500W PoE Power Supply (SX-ACPWR-2500-POE)
  • 200 – 240VAC Consumption (Amps): 14A
  • AC Frequency: 50 – 60Hz
  • Max BTU: 9471 BTU/Hr
  • Max Watts (Output): 2500W
  • Max Watts (Input): 2775W

Safety Agency Approvals

• CAN/CSA-C22.2 No.60950-1-03, Information Technology Equipment–Safety – Part 1: General Requirement
• UL 60950-1, Information Technology Equipment – Safety – Part 1: General Requirement
• EN 60950-1, Information Technology Equipment – Safety – Part 1: General Requirement
• IEC 60950-1, Information Technology Equipment – Safety – Part 1: General Requirement
• EN 60825-1, Safety of Laser Products. Equipment Classification, Requirements and User Guide
• EN 60825-2, Safety of Laser Products, Safety of Optical Fibre Communications Systems

RoHS Compliant (5 of 6)

Electromagnetic Emission

• ICES-003, Electromagnetic Emission
• FCC Class A
• EN 55022/CISPR 22 Class A
• VCCI Class A
• EN 61000-3-2, Power Line Harmonics
• EN 61000-3-3, Voltage Fluctuation & Flicker
• EN 61000-6-3, Electromagnetic Compatibility
• AS/NZS CISPR 22, Electromagnetic Compatibility

Immunity

• EN 61000-6-1, Electromagnetic Compatability, Generic Standard
• EN 55024,Immunity Characteristics Supersedes:
  • EN 61000-4-2, ESD
  • EN 61000-4-3, Radiated, Radio Frequency, Electromagnetic Field
  • EN 61000-4-4, Electrical Fast Transient
  • EN 61000-4-5, Surge
  • EN 61000-4-6, Conducted Disturbances Induced by Radio Frequency Fields
  • EN 61000-4-8, Power Frequency Magnetic Field
  • EN 61000-4-11, Power Frequency Magnetic Field

Warranty

• 1-year Hardware
• 90-day Software

Back to top

System Options

The FastIron SuperX products can be ordered using the following management modules:

• FastIron SuperX with Management 1 module: The FastIron SuperX Management-1 (M-1) module comes with 12 combo copper/fiber Gigabit Ethernet ports (10/100/1000 Mbps (RJ45) or Gigabit Ethernet Fiber (SFP) connectivity per port, a 400MHz processor, a 256MB SDRAM, and a full Layer 3 software upgrade enables support for up to 256,000 BGP routes. Small to medium Enterprise customers can use the FastIron SuperX with the M-1 management module as an Enterprise backbone router.
• FastIron SuperX with Management 2 module: The FastIron SuperX Management-2 (M-2) module comes with 12 combo copper/fiber Gigabit Ethernet ports (10/100/1000 Mbps (RJ45) or Gigabit Ethernet Fiber (SFP) connectivity per port, a 466MHz processor, a 512MB SDRAM, and a full Layer 3 software upgrade enables support for up to 1,000,000 BGP routes. Large Enterprises can employ the FastIron SuperX with an M-2 management module as an Enterprise backbone router. Service Providers and Content Providers can use the FastIron SuperX with an M-2 to aggregate many customers and provide each customer the full Internet route.
• FastIron SX 800/SX 1600 with Management 3 or Management 4 module: The FastIron SX 800/ SX 1600 Management-3 (M-3) module comes with zero ports while the M-4 module comes with 2 Ten Gigabit Ethernet ports (XFP). Both come with a 667MHz processor, a 512 MB SDRAM, and a full Layer 3 software upgrade enables support for up to 1,000,000 BGP routes. Large Enterprises can employ the FastIron SX 800 or SX 1600 with an M-3 or M-4 management module as an Enterprise backbone router. Service Providers and Content Providers can use the FastIron SX 800 or SX 1600 with an M-3 or M-4 to aggregate many customers and provide each customer the full internet routing table.

Back to top

Literature

Datasheets

• FastIron SuperX Family Datasheet (PDF 506K)
• Optics Family (PDF 171K)

White Papers

• Leveraging the Advantages of a Multi-vendor Network Strategy (PDF 181K)
• Multicast Deployment Guide (PDF 187K)

Research & Test Reports

• Tolly Report: Functionality Certification and Competitive Interoperability Evaluation (PDF 501K)

Back to top