T

TO L LY

No. 202123

May 2002

Nortel Networks
Passport 8600

High Availability and Reliability Evaluation

Premise: High availability of network
resources is critical in today's enterprise
LANs. Business-critical data applications
routinely ride alongside voice over IP
(VoIP) traffic and video streams in
converged networks and the unavailability
of any data types for even the smallest
duration of time could have profound
effects on the quality of business services.
Ethernet switches now lie at the core of
network reliability, and network
managers have realized that these devices
must include reliability and highavailability features comparable to
carrier-class devices.

ortel Networks commissioned

The Tolly Group to evaluate the
high-availability and reliability
capabilities of its Passport 8600 Routing
Switch. Specifically, The Tolly Group
investigated the impact that the Passport
8600's Split Multi-link Trunking (Split
MLT) and High Availability capabilities
have on network reconvergence and on
survivability of key switch components.
Testing was conducted from April through
May 2002.
Test results show that the Passport 8600 is
capable of operating with minimal
downtime at both the link and hardware
level. Engineers recorded sub-second fail
over times for a variety of potentially
catastrophic network failures. Moreover,
the sub-second response times stand in
stark contrast to network designs that
employ the Spanning Tree Protocol,
which often reconverges from link
failures within 30 to 60 seconds.

Test Highlights
Achieves sub-second fail over of multi-linked trunks,
maintaining state of voice over IP and video sessions
Boosts reliability, delivering network reconvergence that is
an order of magnitude faster than Spanning Tree designs,
ensuring zero impact in service upgrades to the network
Extends the reliability benefits of Split MLT to attached
third-party switches connected to Passport 8600s via
802.3AD link aggregation
Delivers high availability with respect to hardware failures
or upgrades
High Availability/Reliability of Nortel Networks
Passport 8600 Routing Switch
Average recovery time (in seconds) of induced failures of
network and system functions

Type of induced failure

Average
recovery
time
(seconds)

Passport 1 failure/Link failure (master switch)(Split MLT)

0.91

Passport 1 (Fast or Gigabit) Ethernet module

0.38

Passport 1 master CPU

0.00

Passport 1 loss of single power supply

0.00

Passport 1/Passport 2 loss of IST

0.53

Passport 2 failure (standby switch)(Split MLT)

0.00

BPS hybrid stack link 1 (primary) of 2GigMDA (Split MLT)

0.74

BPS hybrid stack link 2 (backup) of 2GigMDA (Split MLT)

0.00

Passport 3 master switch fabric (Layer 2)

0.00

Source: The Tolly Group, May 2002

2002 The Tolly Group

Test
Summary

Figure 1

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The Tolly Group

Nortel Networks

Passport 8600

Nortel Split Multi-Link Trunking Operational Compatability

Switch brand/model tested

Interoperability with
Passport 8600/Split MLT

Nortel BayStack 450/BPS Distributed-MLT

Yes

Nortel Alteon 180e Link Aggregation

Yes

3Com SuperStack 3 Switch 3300 link aggregation

Yes

Cisco Catalyst 2950G Fast EtherChannel

Yes

Source: The Tolly Group, May 2002

Results
Effect of Split MLT on
Network Reconvergence
Split MLT is a Nortel Networks
capability that allows switches to be
dual-homed to two Passport 8600
switches using standards-based IEEE
802.3AD link aggregation. The
dual-homed nature of the switch-toswitch connections bolsters network
resiliency and network redundancy.
Split MLT also plays a central role in
rerouting data around failures in less
than one second by load sharing
across all available links. If a failure
occurs, the failure is detected,
removed from the path and data
redistributed across the remaining
links in under a second. Split MLT
also delivers sub-second recovery so
that when failures are repaired or
additional links added, traffic is
redistributed to include the new
resource in under a second. This is in
stark contrast to the much slower and
less reliable Spanning Tree approach
(see Analysis section).
Tolly Group engineers tested the high
availability and reliability capabilities
of Split MLT on the Passport 8600s
by subjecting a pair of Passport 8600
core backbone switches in the testbed
to a variety of network and system
outages. These included: loss of the
Split MLT trunk, loss of the
Inter-Switch Trunk link, loss of an
aggregation switch, loss of the master
switch fabric, loss of a Fast
Ethernet/Gigabit Ethernet module

2002 The Tolly Group

Figure 2

and loss of a power supply, among

other scenarios. In every failure
scenario, the affected Passport 8600
reconverged network links in under
one second (See Figure 1).
When using Split MLT, engineers
observed link fail-over times between
740 and 910 milliseconds for all
active links tested, regardless of
traffic flow direction. This also holds
true when used in conjunction with
Nortel BayStack and Business Policy
Switches, which have multi-linked
trunks spanning across multiple
devices within a stack.
Tests also proved that Split MLT
interoperates with other vendors'
equipment. Two popular Layer 2
switches from both Cisco Systems,
Inc. and 3Com Corp were tested.
Cisco uses its proprietary Fast
EtherChannel technology for trunking, and 3Com uses it's own form of
link aggregation; both interoperated
with the Passport 8600s when used in
conjunction with Split MLT (See
Figure 2). The observed interoperability proves that network engineers
can deploy the Passport 8600 safely
in their network cores without
needing to modify already deployed
access devices in order to provide
high availability.

High-Availability Tests
Engineers tested the Passport 8600's
capability to sustain hardware
component failures and system
upgrades while yielding minimal
downtime. Engineers failed the

Passport 8600's primary switch fabric

and CPU. Loss of the switch fabric
resulted in 380 to 525 milliseconds
of non-forwarding activity, while the
loss of a CPU resulted in zero
downtime.
Software upgrades approximate the
process of bringing down a system
CPU, so similar losses are to be
expected. This allowed engineers
essentially to perform a "hitless"
upgrade, providing the capability to
upgrade a production system's
software without the need to "take it
out" for maintenance. Also,
engineers observed that modules in
the Passport could be "hot swapped"
without bringing down the system.

Analysis
Ethernet-based LAN switch
infrastructures typically have been
designed to support the Spanning
Tree Protocol to maintain a network
topology while also guarding against
loops in the network. Network loops
create broadcast storms and wreak
havoc with network performance.
There is, however, a dark side to
Spanning Tree. The protocol is
horribly slow to reconverge the
network in the event of an outage.
Reconvergence times of 30 to 60
seconds are not uncommon, and
while the development of IEEE
802.1w Rapid Spanning Tree can
reduce this convergence to under five
seconds, it doesn't hide the fact that
Spanning Tree does not foster network reliability. Also, 802.1w only

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applies to the initial fail over. When
the network is repaired or additional
links added, the same 30- to 60second reconvergence comes into
play. Another negative aspect to
Spanning Tree is that backup links
remain dormant. Traffic is only 'cut
over' to them during an outage of a
primary link so there is no load
sharing of parallel links.
Nortel Networks overcomes the
limitations of Spanning Tree with the
Passport 8600 and its Split MLT technology. One of those Spanning Tree
limitations pertains to dual-homed
links, which usually add reliability in
terms of multipath route redundancy.
Dual-homed links, however, create
network loops, which Spanning Tree
guards against by blocking an
alternate path. For Layer 2
bandwidth optimization, Split MLT
utilizes all available links to perform
traffic load-sharing and balance
traffic flows.
Another benefit of Split MLT is that
it preserves application states. In
tests, Tolly Group engineers ran
streaming video and VoIP traffic over
the Split MLT connections during a
loss of switch system resources. The
fail over was so fast at the sub-second
rate, that there was no loss of VoIP
and video sessions.

Test Configuration
and Methodology
The Tolly Group tested a Nortel
Networks Passport 8600, version
REL3.2.2.
Engineers connected a pair of
Passport 8600 switches (as a
redundant core switch pair) to each
other via Inter-switch Trunking (IST)
redundant Gigabit Ethernet links. On
one side of the network, each DUT
connected to a hybrid stack switch
pair consisting of a Nortel Business
Policy Switch and a Nortel BayStack
450. One of these hybrid pairs
connected to a Nortel i2004 IP phone
and a generic Windows XP
workstation to play streaming media
files. On the other side of the

2002 The Tolly Group

Nortel Networks
network, engineers connected a third
Passport 8600 (acting as an
aggregation switch) via Split MLT to
each core Passport 8600. Engineers
connected a Nortel i2004 IP phone, a
Business Communications Manager
(BCM) Call Manager server and a
generic Windows 2000 Advanced
Server Windows Streaming Media
Server to this Passport 8600. An
IXIA 1600 traffic generator connected to the hybrid stack and to the
Passport 8600 aggregation switch.
All connections were Gigabit
Ethernet; the network supported
multiple VLANs.
For interoperability tests, engineers
removed the Passport 8600 acting as
an aggregation switch along with the
IP phone, BCM Call Manager and
Media Server and substituted
individually each of the following
devices: an Alteon 180e Gigabit
Ethernet switch, a 3Com SuperStack
3 Switch 3300, version 3300 SM9(l),
and a Cisco Systems Catalyst 2950G
switch, version 12.1(6)EA2, all
trunked via Gigabit Ethernet links.
Engineers configured the IXIA 1600
to generate bidirectional, 512-byte
packets at 90% Fast Ethernet line rate
using the Ixia ScriptMate RFC 2544
Frame Loss test. Engineers then
introduced system failure by
disconnecting power to or pulling out
the specific unit designated in the
following scenarios: loss of split
multi-link trunking (Split MLT) link;
loss of inter-switch trunking (IST)
link; loss of aggregation switch; loss
of master switch fabric; loss of
master and standby switch fabric;
loss of Fast/Gigabit Ethernet module;
loss of power supply.
The Ixia ScriptMate application
recorded total transmitted frames and
total received frames. Tests
transmitted 500,000 frames, and were
run for
three test
iterations
and results
were
averaged.

Passport 8600
Nortel
Networks
Passport 8600
Routing Switch
HighAvailability and
Reliability
Nortel Networks
Passport 8600 Routing Switch
Product Specifications*
Features

Modular platform

3,6,10 and 10 Slot CO chassis options

Layer 2-7 switching

IP, IPX and IPMC routing

Fully redundant hot-swappable modules

Load-sharing AC and DC power supplies

Load-sharing switching fabrics

Redundant cooling

Wire-speed switching, filtering and forwarding

Wire-speed QoS with Diffserv code-point

mapping

Up to 96 million pps aggregate throughput

Up to 384 Fast Ethernet ports

Up to 128 Gigabit Ethernet ports

Up to eight ports of 10-Gigabit Ethernet

Metro CWDM optical networking

ATM, DS-3, OC-3 and OC-12

SONET, OC-3 and OC-12

Layer 4-7 SLB and content switching

Network Address Translation

High availability CPU mirroring

S-MLT, D-MLT and 802.3AD Link

Aggregation

RIP 1 and 2, OSPF, BGP4

DVMRP, PIM, PGM, IGMP

802.1d Spanning Tree

802.1p and Q VLAN priority and tagging

RFC2338 VRRP with backup-master

SSH, SNMP V2&V3 secure management

For more information contact:

Nortel Networks
35 Davis Drive
Research Triangle Park, NC 27709
Phone: (800) 4-NORTEL (1-800-466-7835)
URL: http://www.nortelnetworks.com
*Vendor-supplied information not verified by
The Tolly Group

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The Tolly Group

Nortel Networks

MediaServer
47.135.204.109
Passport
8600 C
VLAN 64/80/
96

BCM
47.135.204.110

Test Bed
Alteon 180e
VLAN 64/80

IXIA 1600 Packet Generator

SMLT 8

3Com SmartSwitch
3300 VLAN 80/96

i2004
IP Phone

Workstation

SMLT 3

Cisco
Catalyst 2950
VLAN 64

Passport 8600

Stacked BPS
VLAN 64/80

SMLT 2

SMLT 6

SMLT 7
Stacked BPS / 450
VLAN64/80/96

i2004
IP Phone

SMLT 5

IST-MLT1
Passport 8600 A

Passport 8600 B

Source: The Tolly Group, May 2002

Figure 3

The Tolly Group gratefully acknowledges the providers of test equipment used in this project.
Vendor
Ixia

Product
IXIA 1600

Tolly Group Services

With more than a decade of testing experience of
leading-edge network technologies, The Tolly Group
employs time-proven test methodologies and fair testing
principles to benchmark products and services with the
highest degree of accuracy. Plus, unlike narrowly focused
testing shops, The Tolly Group combines its vast
technology knowledge with focused marketing services to
help clients better position product benchmarks for
maximum exposure. The company offers an unparalleled
array of reports and services including: Test Summaries,
Tolly Verifieds, performance certification programs,
educational Webcasts, white paper production, proof-ofconcept testing, network planning, industry studies,
end-user services, strategic consulting and integrated
marketing services. Learn more about
The Tolly Group services by calling
(732) 528-3300, or send E-mail to
info@tolly.com.

Web address
http://www.ixiacom.com

Project Profile
Sponsor: Nortel Networks.
Document number: 202123
Product Class: Backbone switch with carrier-class
reliability
Products under test:

Passport 8600 Routing Switch, version REL3.2.2

Testing window: April through May 2002
For more information on this document, or other services
offered by The Tolly Group, visit our World Wide Web
site at http://www.tolly.com, send E-mail to
info@tolly.com, call (800) 933-1699 or (732) 528-3300.

For info on the Fair Testing Charter, visit:

www.tolly.com/About/ftc.asp
Internetworking technology is an area of rapid growth and constant change. The Tolly Group conducts engineering-caliber testing in
an effort to provide the internetworking industry with valuable information on current products and technology. While great care is
taken to assure utmost accuracy, mistakes can occur. In no event shall The Tolly Group be liable for damages of any kind including
direct, indirect, special, incidental, and consequential damages which may result from the use of information contained in this
document. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
The Tolly Group doc. 202123 rev. kco 03 July 02

2002 The Tolly Group

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