Telecom Lead America: ADTRAN has launched ActivChassis stacking technology for its NetVanta 1600 series of Gigabit Ethernet switches.
ActivChassis, a software feature, allows network administrators to interconnect multiple switches and view the stack as a single, logical chassis-like system, with control and management consolidated to a single viewpoint.
ADTRAN’s ActivChassis technology is designed to offer backplane switching capacity up to 128 Gbps, the ability to interconnect switches scattered across a campus environment, to ensure constant infrastructure uptime and deliver control efficiency in the network.
Alex Morrow, president of AbovePoint Technologies, said: “ActivChassis provides this benefit for our customers while simultaneously allowing them to incrementally grow their network as their business grows. This flexibility coupled with ADTRAN’s industry-leading support and warranty enables us to deliver solutions for our customers that are second to none.”
ADTRAN’s ActivChassis technology will be available as a software upgrade for the NetVanta 1638 and the NetVanta 1638P Gigabit Ethernet switches beginning January 2013.
ActivChassis enables businesses to cost-effectively grow their network to accommodate bandwidth-hungry services and devices, simplify network administration and enhance network redundancy.
The new technology enables up to eight switches to be interconnected and actively managed as a single, intelligent system, allowing users to control up to 400 switch ports across distances up to 10,000 meters. ActivChassis allows network administrators to log into the stack, view all available switch ports, make changes, and have all switches in the stack share a single configuration file and IP address.
“Our SME customers face a number of issues as they are looking to enhance their wired infrastructure – the need to maintain multiple switch configurations; the need for manpower overhead to administer switches spread across different wiring closets; and the need to improve network resiliency, as their businesses depend on it,” said Todd Lattanzi, director of product management for ADTRAN’s Enterprise Networks Division.
The modular design of the NetVanta 1600 series Gigabit Ethernet switches allows for a variety of flexible ActivChassis stacking architectures no matter the customer environment.
The NetVanta 1600 Dual SFP+ Module also allows ActivChassis configurations that span multiple wiring closets and even across entire campus deployments. When configured in a ring topology, all uplinks ports are fully utilized resulting in no single point of failure in the network. In the unlikely event one switch goes down, all other switches in the stack remain connected and active for maximum network resiliency.
