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Nortel's innovative,
resilient Stackable
architecture
Nortel has continued to evolve and
perfect its Enterprise Stackable portfolio
into a truly resilient, high-performance
Stacking solution. Nortel's Ethernet
Routing Switch 2500, 4500, and 5500
and 5600 product lines all incorporate
key capabilities designed to deliver a
'Stackable Chassis' solution, including:
• Ease of growth/management:
Extending capacity is easy; simply cable
a new unit into the Stack, and the Stack
configuration is automatically updated.
The Stack acts as a single entity that
can be managed via a single IP Address.
• Scalable performance: The high-
performance design of Nortel's
Stackable Switches along with their
high-speed Stack connections (up to
144Gbps per Switch/1.152Tbps per
Stack) ensure that the Stack scales
proportionally as each new unit is
added.
• Optimal path forwarding: A bi-
directional, multi-path forwarding
algorithm between Switches ensures
that the shortest, most optimal path
is chosen for each flow of traffic. This
design offers a clear performance
advantage over the basic logical Ring
or Token approaches used by other
vendors.
• No single point of failure: Stack
operation is unaffected by the failure
of any unit in the Stack. Each unit's
independent Switch Fabric along with
distributed, redundant power ensures
continuous operation of the Stack.
Individual Stack units can easily be
replaced — i.e., a 'virtual hot-swap'
capability — without impacting Stack
operations (a feature known as 'Auto-
Unit Replacement').
• Switch Clustering: Switch Clustering
(based on Nortel's SMLT technology)
can be enabled on the ERS 5000 Series
to enhance overall resiliency of the
Stack solution, providing load-balancing
and sub-second failover.
2
ERS 5600 Switches can be Stacked
with one another or with any Ethernet
Routing Switch 5500 unit, and when
connected to an adjacent ERS 5500, the
ERS 5600 automatically adjusts to the
ERS 5500's Stack bandwidth of 80Gbps.
This enhanced flexibility provides the
opportunity to mix and match port
configurations based on operations needs,
while preserving any existing ERS 5500
investments.
ERS 5000 models come with two
in-built auto-sensing Stacking connec-
tions — implementing sophisticated
Queuing — for simple, cost-effective
and efficient Stacking. This design frees
uplink ports for dedicated connectivity
to the backbone. The ERS 5000's high-
performance architecture guarantees
optimized throughput across Ports,
Uplinks and Stacking connectors.
Ethernet Routing Switch
5000 deployment scenarios
Ethernet Routing Switch 5000 is a flex-
ible solution that can be deployed in a
variety of Enterprise environments. These
include:
High-density Wiring Closet
With its non-blocking design, high-
density GbE and integrated 10GbE port
options, the Ethernet Routing Switch
Figure 1. Ethernet Routing Switch 5000 in Horizontal
Stacking/Data Center application
5000 Series is perfectly suited as a Wiring
Closet solution for high-availability LAN
edge User connectivity. Up to eight ERS
5000 Switches can be combined into a
single Stack with each ERS 5600 unit
providing two 10GbE XFP ports for
high-capacity uplinks to the Core or
aggregation layers of the network. ERS
5698 models provide even greater cost,
space and energy efficiency with their
ultra-dense Gigabit-to-the-Desktop
capacity and the added flexibility of up
to 6 SFP ports per Switch for long-reach
fiber optic connections. With the ability
to support Power-over-Ethernet across
all its ports, the ERS 5000 Series is an
effective and flexible Wiring Closet/
Edge solution in support of Desktop and
powered devices.
High-performance Data Center edge
The high-performance, low-latency and
high-availability requirements of the
modern Data Center make the ERS
5000 Series a perfect solution for Server
access and consolidation. By utilizing
the ERS 5000's innovative 'Horizontal
Stacking' capability — a Switch at the
top of each Server rack, Stacked 'hori-
zontally' — the ERS 5000 Series can
support cost-effective, high-density
Server connections. Up to 400 Gigabit
ports and multiple 10GbE uplinks per
Stack can be deployed in this manner
(see Figure 1).
DMLT to Core/Distribution
DMLT to Core/Distribution
IST
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