Avaya beefs up switch architecture to compete with Cisco, HP

Avaya this week rolled out extensions to its 4000 series switches and said its year-old virtualized networking architecture is taking hold in campuses and data centers.

The new Ethernet Routing Switch 4000 series switches are designed to help enterprises optimize networks for collaboration, and simplify the convergence of voice, video and data. One of the key new features of the line is a boost in stacking bandwidth from 320G to 384Gbps.

The switches

Along with the switches, Avaya rolled out new software that includes support for Power over Ethernet and PoE+, among other features.

The switches are compatible with Avaya's Virtual Enterprise Network Architecture, a blueprint unveiled a year ago to allow users to optimize the network for business applications and services through virtualization. VENA is a software enhancement that supports the emerging IEEE 802.1AQ Shortest Path Bridging standard for deploying multiple active paths in a data center switch fabric. 

While SPB may not be going gangbusters, Avaya says elements of VENA - just as switch clustering, "enhanced" Shortest Path Bridging, wireless networking, network access control, and network management - are being picked up by clients.

"Our long-term strategy is successful, and momentum continues to build up" for the architecture, says Jean Turgeon, global general manager for Avaya Networking. "Many clients have bought based on VENA. Clients like where we're going and we have real deployments."

VENA is competing with other network virtualization and fabric architectures from Cisco, Brocade, HP, Dell, IBM, Extreme, Enterasys, Alcatel-Lucent, and others. Even though there's less of a footprint for SPB exactly, Turgeon says the VENA message is resonating with clients.

Good job pushing it into Nortel

"They've done a good job pushing it into Nortel," Kerravala says, "nevertheless their straightway area should be the Avaya phone base, which has a lot of HP Procurve."

For example, the ERS 4826GTS includes 24 ports of 10/100/1000Mbps Ethernet, including two shared Gigabit Ethernet SFP uplink ports, plus two additional 10G Ethernet SFP+ uplink ports. The ERS 4826GTS-PWR+ includes 24 ports of 10/100/1000 with PoE/PoE+, including two shared SFP uplinks and two additional SFP+ uplink ports.

Avaya as well added two new models to its ERS 4500 Fast Ethernet line that both support PoE+. The ERS 4526T-PWR+ includes 24 10/100 ports with PoE/PoE+, plus two 10/100/1000 SFP uplink ports. The ERS 4550T-PWR+ features 48 10/100 ports with PoE/PoE+, plus two 10/100/1000 SFP uplink ports.

Avaya's Wireless Split-Plane innovation decouples wired and wireless control and data traffic in order to ensure that wireless data takes the most optimal path across the network. The company's Virtual Services Fabric is designed to extend the reach of virtualized services from the data center to the campus edge to support the peer-to-peer traffic of collaborative applications like video, and data center-based desktop virtualization applications.