The Black Diamond is accompanied in DoC by around a dozen switch/routers, mostly Summit 48s.

Black Diamond 6800 Data Sheet

The BlackDiamond™ 6800 from Extreme Networks™ delivers scalability for core switching, segment switching and server switching in Ethernet enterprise environments. When used with Extreme's Summit™ LAN switches, network managers can build a seamless 10/100/1000 Mbps switched Ethernet system that delivers a common set of services throughout the enterprise. The result is network simplicity, merged with scalable speed, performance, network size and Policy-Based Quality of Service.

Each BlackDiamond system is pre-installed with ExtremeWare™, a standards-based software suite that delivers the ability to manage and control bandwidth on a network. ExtremeWare combines standards with advanced features to deliver Policy-Based QoS that includes prioritization, bandwidth management, and VLAN switching and routing. Policy-Based QoS lets network managers prioritize and allocate bandwidth to many different types of network traffic - right down to the TCP/UDP session - without significant performance penalty.

• Ideal for core switching, segment switching and server switching
• Non-blocking 64 Gbps backplane yields 48 million packet per second throughput
• Wire-Speed IP Routing at Layer 3 and wire-speed switching at Layer 2
• Link aggregation, redundant ports, Spanning Tree, multipath routing and redundant router protocol increase system reliability
• 256 10/100BASE-TX or 100BASE-FX ports, or 224 100BASE-FX ports, or 48 Gigabit Ethernet ports in a single chassis
• Fault-tolerant: hot-swappable modules switch fabric, management modules, power supplies and fan tray
• Policy-Based QoS including prioritization, bandwidth management and congestion control
• Extensive management via local and remote (telnet) CLI, SNMP, RMON and HTTP

A Variety of Applications
BlackDiamond is ideal as a core network switch, segment switch and server switch.  In the enterprise core, BlackDiamond performs collapsed-backbone routing and switching at wire speed to handle the growing influx of intranet and Internet traffic that travels between multiple networks.

Configured as a high-density segment switch in the wiring closet, BlackDiamond can aggregate the hierarchy of legacy hubs and switches that support desktop connections. With BlackDiamond performing segment switching at Layer 3, local traffic stays within the subnet and does not needlessly enter the core.

As a server switch, it supports 10/100 Mbps Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet attached servers in the data center.   With its non-blocking performance, BlackDiamond ensures sufficient bandwidth between servers and to segments.  Conversely, the BlankDiamond supports Gigabit Ethernet segments and 10/100 Mbps server links to optimize client-to-server traffic, Multiple 10, 100 and 1,000 Mbps switch ports can also be trunked into one logical link between the data center and network core, and to high-performance servers.

Simple to Configure and Deploy
The BlackDiamond 6800 chassis has 10 slots. The two center slots support Management Switch fabric Modules (MSMs), which perform packet switching between all modules across the 64 Gbps backplane and support boot and management operations.

Each MSM has two management processors to run the CLI, SNMP and RMON agents in the real-time operating system. These processors also run the Spanning Tree Protocol and routing protocols, such as RIP, RIPv2, OSPF, IGMP, IGMP v2, DVMRP, PIM Dense Mode and IPX RIP.  With two redundant MSMs, the BlackDiamond uses all four processors (two processors per MSM) for protocol processing.

Each MSM has 32 Gbps of raw switching and routing bandwidth. Although only one MSM is required in BlackDiamond, two MSMs used in parallel can support load-shared switching and routing, plus load-shared management, Spanning Tree and routing protocol processing.  BlackDiamonds configured with two MSMs deliver 64 Gbps of backplane capacity, fully supporting non-blocking performance.

The remaining slots in BlackDiamond accommodate a variety of switch modules with 10/100BASE-TX, 100BASE-FX or 1000BASE-X Ethernet interfaces.

For switched 10/100 Mbps Ethernet, the F32T switch module supports 32 RJ-45 ports for 10/100BASE-TX autosensing connectivity, while the F32F switch module has 32 MT-RJ ports for 100BASE-FX connectivity. BlackDiamond accommodates a maximum of 256 10/100 ports when fully populated with F32T modules, or 224 100BASE-FX ports when fully populated with F32F modules.

For Gigabit Ethernet, the G4X switch module features four GBIC ports for 1000BASE-SX or 1000BASE-LX connections, while the G6X  switch module has six GBIC ports for 1000BASE-SX or 1000BASE-LX connections. BlackDiamond supports a maximum of 32 Gigabit Ethernet ports when fully populated with G4X modules, or 48 Gigabit Ethernet ports when fully populated with the G6X modules.

Fault Tolerance and System Reliability
BlackDiamond comes with the fault-tolerant and system-reliability features that network managers expect from a chassis-based system. Every component is hot swappable, including MSMs, switch interface modules, power supplies and fans trays. This high level of fault tolerance and system reliability ensures that network availability is fully optimized to support the toughest mission-critical requirements, such as e-commerce applications and Enterprise Resourse Planning (SAP, Baan, etc.)

Redundancy and Load-Sharing
The redundancy and load-sharing features inherent in BlackDiamond are designed to increase network uptime by ensuring quick recovery from unexpected failures. Although a fully-loaded BlackDiamond can run from a single power supply, two load-shared power supplies can increase longevity and reduce the operating temperature.

Because the MSM is necessary to switch traffic across the 64 Gbps backplane and manage all chassis components, the consequences of a failure can be disastrous in a mission-critical environment. To help reduce this risk, BlackDiamond supports redundant, load-sharing MSMs.

Redundant MSMs actively share the load of switching traffic across the backplane, managing chassis components and running applications like Spanning Tree, RIP, RIP v2, OSPF, DVMRP, PIM Dense Mode and IPX RIP. One MSM is the designated master that controls four management processors on both MSMs and saves configurations and ExtremeWare to non-volatile memory on both MSMs.  A synchronization function allows a network manager to quickly add a new (slave) MSM to a chassis, and guarantees that all configurations will be identical to the master MSM.

Multipath Routing
Multipath routing greatly enhances network performance, throughput and reliability. When two or more connections are created between switches, the Spanning Tree Protocol must be running to prevent a loop. In a network with BlackDiamond and Summit switches, routed traffic will traverse multiple paths between any two hosts in the network - even if the Spanning Tree Protocol blocks a port that forms a loop.  Multipath routing will deliver faster recovery times in the event of a network failure.

Redundant Router Protocol
The Extreme Standby Router Protocol™ enables host devices to continue communicating if a physical router is unavailable.  With ESRP™, network managers can configure a virtual router interface on two or more BlackDiamond systems residing on the same subnet. The connected hosts are then configured to use the virtual router interface as the default gateway.

Ordering Information

Extreme Networks™ is a leading provider of next generation LAN switching solutions that meet the increasing need of enterprse LANS. Recognizing the need to migrate existing LANs to the requirements of today's intranets, Extreme builds on Gigabit Ethernet with its system of Layer 3 switches and ExtremeWare software to scale speed, bandwidth, network size and quality of service (QoS) from the desktop to the backbone.

For more product information from Extreme Networks, please call 1-888-257-3000.