Abstract

Extreme Networks, Inc. commissioned The Tolly Group to evaluate the power consumption of its BlackDiamond 8810 series switch versus the power consumption of the comparable core switches from Cisco Systems, Inc. and Foundry Networks, Inc.

Tolly Group engineers measured the total watts consumed by the Black- Diamond 8810 switch, a Cisco Catalyst 6509 and a Foundry BigIron RX- 16. Power consumption measurements were taken across more than a dozen traffic load scenarios, ranging from no load on the switch to a heavily taxed load of eight 10GbE ports and 96 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) ports. Tests were conducted in January 2008.