NetIron MLX

Over the past year we've saved a number of mid-sized telecom clients a good deal of their IT budgets by helping them increase port density in existing configurations rather than upgrading to a larger profile chassis. One such card that more than doubles existing port-density is the NI-MLX-1GX48-T-A, a 48-port 10/100/1000Base-T, MRJ21 module that replaces the standard 20-port NI-MLX-1Gx20-GC RJ45 copper cards.

Customers have repeatedly asked me what the real difference between Brocade's NetIron MLX and their XMR series router. I've know for some time that generally speaking, the XMR offers improved performance over it's cousin the MLX. However I was never able to quantify and vocalize exactly what that meant in real world applications. After dragging my feet for far too long, I dug into Brocade's data sheets and did some research on the web and am pleased to summarize the differences between these two models as thus: