7 ms·

> Calling this the fastest switch in the world and then printing 5ns is misleading. The claim in the (original) story title is 110ns layer 2+ switching. I'm si

> Calling this the fastest switch in the world and then printing 5ns is misleading. The claim in the (original) story title is 110ns layer 2+ switching. I'm sitting in the summit right now, no details on what 2+ means, but, the target market is market data distribution (and this was discussed in the slides) so I would assume that they've thought about this. 5ns is additional functionality available in previous products (http://exablaze.com/exalink-50 http://exablaze.com/exalink-50) which is also in this product. From the sides, the idea is that they can set up multiple broadcast groups with the 5ns device to distribute market data, and then aggregate responses together with with 110ns (or in some cases 100ns) device, all in one box.

myrandomcomment 12y ago
So the exalink-50 number is as a Layer1 switch. So the comment "can setup multiple broadcast groups" sounds like the Cisco Nexus 3548 Warp Mode. The market did not take to that so not sure how this is going to change that. Like I said, I have not reviewed all the data yet. An important step for verification for all this is to put it in the hands of David Newman for a test, either paid via his private company Network Test, or publicly via Network World. A testing house like EANTC would also be great. As you can might have guessed from my post I know a bit about this world (I am not involved anymore). At this point it is more of a historical curiosity on my part more then anything (I still have a number of friends that run HFT networks at the banks). Given what I saw in testing and claims during the early HFT rush I always want to see 3rd party testing from a reputable testing house showing a real market data feature set being used. Here is a starting list: 1. BGP running 2. Mulitcast w/PIM 3. IGMP snooping 4. ACL configured 5. 1 port to max port of switch fanout. 6. 1% to 100% line rate on the feed. 7. Packet size ranges, both fixed and mixed. 8. Join/leave time. 9. Max groups joined.
- deadgrey19 12y ago
  Agreed. Independent verification is definitely needed. Although I think that this is why they've announced this at STAC which does this (https://stacresearch.com/about https://stacresearch.com/about). I've moved over to academia now, but I came from tan HFT prop-trading background. We would have jumped at the chance to get one of these in our hands, but this was 3 years ago now. Can I ask why you'd want BGP running in a private LAN? This seems like an odd thing to do, especially in Colo environments.
  - myrandomcomment 12y ago
    The handoff of the market data feed is over multicast but the connection at L3 to the exchange is BGP. Since everyone has the same latency from the feed, the goal is to take the feed in and fanout to host as fast as possible. So ideally one port on this switch is to the exchange and the others direct to servers or if you need more scale to another lay of low latency switches that the server farms connect to. For all the money spent on this it is really pretty simple from a networking point of view.
- SEJeff 12y ago
  Layer 1 and switch are mutually exclusive. A hub or patch panel are layer 1 devices. Switching, by using the mac address, is fundamentally a layer 2 technology. Am I missing something here? This thing is fast when used as a patch panel, but that is cheating and isn't really switching.
  - deadgrey19 12y ago
    Yes. There's a layer one patch panel inside, with 48x3 ports. 48 for the front and 48x2 for inside. Inside they have two "application" bays and in one of them is a layer2+ switching device. So it's a layer 1+2+ device in one package.

myrandomcomment 12y ago

So the exalink-50 number is as a Layer1 switch. So the comment "can setup multiple broadcast groups" sounds like the Cisco Nexus 3548 Warp Mode. The market did not take to that so not sure how this is going to change that. Like I said, I have not reviewed all the data yet. An important step for verification for all this is to put it in the hands of David Newman for a test, either paid via his private company Network Test, or publicly via Network World. A testing house like EANTC would also be great. As you can might have guessed from my post I know a bit about this world (I am not involved anymore). At this point it is more of a historical curiosity on my part more then anything (I still have a number of friends that run HFT networks at the banks). Given what I saw in testing and claims during the early HFT rush I always want to see 3rd party testing from a reputable testing house showing a real market data feature set being used. Here is a starting list: 1. BGP running 2. Mulitcast w/PIM 3. IGMP snooping 4. ACL configured 5. 1 port to max port of switch fanout. 6. 1% to 100% line rate on the feed. 7. Packet size ranges, both fixed and mixed. 8. Join/leave time. 9. Max groups joined.

deadgrey19 12y ago
Agreed. Independent verification is definitely needed. Although I think that this is why they've announced this at STAC which does this (https://stacresearch.com/about https://stacresearch.com/about). I've moved over to academia now, but I came from tan HFT prop-trading background. We would have jumped at the chance to get one of these in our hands, but this was 3 years ago now. Can I ask why you'd want BGP running in a private LAN? This seems like an odd thing to do, especially in Colo environments.
- myrandomcomment 12y ago
  The handoff of the market data feed is over multicast but the connection at L3 to the exchange is BGP. Since everyone has the same latency from the feed, the goal is to take the feed in and fanout to host as fast as possible. So ideally one port on this switch is to the exchange and the others direct to servers or if you need more scale to another lay of low latency switches that the server farms connect to. For all the money spent on this it is really pretty simple from a networking point of view.
SEJeff 12y ago
Layer 1 and switch are mutually exclusive. A hub or patch panel are layer 1 devices. Switching, by using the mac address, is fundamentally a layer 2 technology. Am I missing something here? This thing is fast when used as a patch panel, but that is cheating and isn't really switching.
- deadgrey19 12y ago
  Yes. There's a layer one patch panel inside, with 48x3 ports. 48 for the front and 48x2 for inside. Inside they have two "application" bays and in one of them is a layer2+ switching device. So it's a layer 1+2+ device in one package.