Johannesburg, 15 Jun 1999
JSE-listed Datacentrix has installed the first Cabletron SmartSwitch Router 2000 in the country for the giant Mine Pension Fund (MPF).
Datacentrix has been active in the networking arena for many years and is one of the foremost Cabletron suppliers in the country. The MPF has been in the forefront of the retirement industry for the past 50 years.
Datacentrix senior account manager, Gerhard Gouws, says the company installed a network backbone infrastructure for the MPF. "We used Cabletron to connect the MPF`s new SAP servers to a high speed one gigabyte Internet backbone, with the SmartSwitch Router 2000 providing better throughput on the network."
MPF network engineer, Jacques Rheeder, explains the motivation behind the purchase was to move from Shared Ethernet and FDDI ring to employ switching technology.
"With rising volume we have had increased demand and the SmartSwitch Router 2000 will provide more bandwidth for our users."
Designed for the workgroup, the SmartSwitch Router 2000 provides high-density, wire-speed 10/100/1000 Mbps switching and routing with throughput in excess of 6.0 million packets per second.
Network managers can now deliver policy-based, application-level Quality of Service to the desktop, protect uplinks and servers with Access Control Lists, gather detailed accounting information with per-port RMON and RMON2, and can use VLANs and IP Multicast.
The MPF applications include regular office tasks, messaging, SAP, and HTML; as well as a gateway to the mainframe so servers are running mainframe applications.
Rheeder says the reason the MPF chose Datacentrix was the company`s proposal was the best in terms of product and solution. Gouws adds that the decision was also based on the efficiency of design.
According to both Rheeder and Gouws, the SmartSwitch Router 2000 is installed and running well.
Gouws maintains that to maintain the competitive edge, businesses must deliver information - highest quality, in the most useful form - to the right individuals at the right time. "But as at the MPF, the network pipelines carrying that information are more and more congested by bandwidth-hungry applications, multimedia-rich content and server consolidations.
"Confronted with these issues, IS managers are discovering that conventional software-based routers - although rich in features - can`t meet the required level of performance. Hardware-based Layer 2 switches, on the other hand, can deliver high performance - but lack the control and functionality of routers."
He says the solution is switch-routers based on Gigabit Ethernet technology, such as SmartSwitch Router family of products from Cabletron. "This combination offers the higher performance, enhanced capacity, greater control, and investment protection needed to manage today`s rapidly evolving networks."
Rheeder says the future will see the MPF stay on its present course. "We have bought into switching technology and we will follow that route as business expands."
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