Providing More Ports in Less Space. Nortel Ethernet Routing Switch 5510 switch, compared to Cisco Catalyst 3750G switch, provides 1.8 times more ports in 41 percent less space.
Switch fabric capacity: The Ethernet Routing Switch 5510 has a five times faster switch fabric than Cisco Catalyst 3750G (160 Gbps vs. 32 Gbps). Nortel greater capacity means that performance will not be hindered as requirements demand more switching capability.
Stacking throughput: For a single switch, the Ethernet Routing Switch 5510 has 2.5 times greater stacking bandwidth than Cisco Catalyst 3750G (80 Gbps vs. 32 Gbps).
For a full stack, the Ethernet Routing Switch 5510 has 20 times greater stacking capability than Cisco Catalyst 3750G (640 Gbps vs. 32 Gbps). The Ethernet Routing Switch 5510 uses point-to-point traffic flow, whereas Cisco Catalyst 3750G uses dual rings. In case of failure, Cisco Catalyst 3750G’s stacking throughput drops by 50%. With the Ethernet Routing Switch 5510, the throughput for the two switches adjacent to the failed switch decreases by 50% but stays at 80 Gbps for all the other switches in the stack.
Recessed connectors: On the Ethernet Routing Switch 5510, the stacking connectors are recessed and provide better connection than Cisco Catalyst 3750G’s protruded connectors, which result in loss of connection from accidental bumping.
QoS Support: Nortel Ethernet Routing Switch 5510 provides extensive QoS with eight hardware-based queues per port, including the stacking ports, allowing users to define eight different traffic priorities, as compared to only four queues per port for the Cisco Catalyst 3750G. Four queues may not be sufficient for prioritization of mission-critical traffic. Additionally, Nortel provides the QOS Wizard for efficient QoS switch configuration, and Optivity Policy Services for Enterprise-wide policy management.
RPSU support: Nortel power supply solution can power up to 4 failed switches simultaneously. With Nortel’s 800-watt Ethernet Routing Switch 10 Power Supply Unit, up to four failed network devices can simultaneously receive RPS support. With Cisco’s solution, up to 6 switches may be connected. However, the Cisco power supply can only power one failed switch at one time. There is no power redundancy if more than one Cisco switch were to fail.
Provide reliability calculations; Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) rates.
Table 3 defines the predicted Mean-Time-Between-Failure (MTBF) rates for the Ethernet Routing Switch 5510 switches.