A Man For All Seasons: Brocade BigIron RX

(Author contemplating the possibilities of an RX-32!)

The Foundry Brocade BigIron RX series is probably my favorite product in the Brocade IP product line. While the Netiron series (XMR/MLX) is the direction many choose for High Performance Core routing or any heavy Layer 3 requirements (including MPLS), the BigIron RX is a very versatile Edge or aggregation switch with respectable L3 support. We are even seeing customers deploy the BI-RX-4-AC as a top-of rack solution, given its attractive price point on the secondary market. It can be used as a straight L2 device, L3 device, or a little of both (per port basis). All ports perform at wire speed, it supports in-chassis redundancy for power, fabric, and management modules, and both 1GbE and 10GB line cards are available at very attractive pricing.

The RX Line offers 4, 8, 16 and 32 (!!) slot chassis (BI-RX-32-AC), and shares line cards across all chassis, and switch fabrics and managements across most (8-slot and 16 slot share switch fabrics modules and powers amongst themselves only, and the 32 has unique fabrics, powers and managements).

It is situated above the FastIron SuperX series, which is a very good access switch, which is more positioned towards the corporate office closet (POE offerings, not fully redundant is the chassis, larger footprint, lesser performance). However, the SX Still a very good switch for a lot of applications. (More on the SuperX another day!)

Full specs on the BigIron RX Family can be found here:
http://www.terabitsystems.com/foundry-docs/Foundry-BigIron-RX-Series-Datasheet.pdf

Get in touch with us to learn more about the Foundry Brocade BigIron RX series ethernet switches, or to discuss any other used Data Network Hardware needs you might have.

Brian Stadtmiller
brian(at)terabitsystems(dot)com
415-230-4353 main