10Gb Ethernet on Intel Mac, Myricom 10Gb Eth vs. Cisco Catalyst 3560E X2 CX4/MMF

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- Frantisek.Rysanek
  
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posted
15 years ago

Wed, Jul 23, 2008 7:28 AM

Dear Everyone,

I'd appreciate any practical notes/recommendation/warnings on the following combination of hardware (and operating system drivers):

We're eyeing some 10Gb Eth adapter cards to be used in MacOS X on an Intel Mac. The two brands that seem to have drivers for the MacOS are Intel (3rd-party driver by Small Tree) and Myricom (own driver). We're planning to attach that to an existing Cisco Catalyst 3560-E series switch, via the X2 modules available from cisco: either metallic CX4 or the short-range 850nm multimode fibre.

Two questions:

1) do you have any experience with Myricom 10Gb against Cisco Catalyst switches ? (I assume Intel would work like a charm, the brand size of Intel and Cisco and the public PR claims of love between the two brands just make me believe so) Any specific notes regarding the Cisco and Myricom CX4 metallic and SFP+ vs. X2 multimode optical transceiver compatibility?

2) do you have any notes regarding Intel+SmallTree or Myricom 10Gb Ethernet boards under MacOS on Intel Mac? Driver issues, performance, general compatibility...

Any techie hints would be appreciated, before I start collecting price quotes from local distributors :-)

Frank Rysanek

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- Patrick Klos
  
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posted
15 years ago

Wed, Jul 23, 2008 5:03 PM

I can't speak for connecting to a Cisco, but at one of my customer sites the Myricom seems to work fine going to a Broadcom based non-Cisco switch. And the Intel card works fine going to the same non-Cisco switch. We only use SFPs at this customer site.

In the past I had heard that Myricom isn't quite compatible, but it seems they are now??

This customer hasn't tested the Intel card in the Mac yet, but from what I gathered (I didn't do the tests myself), they were able to get reasonable performance from the Myricom. Probably doesn't help without real numbers, but I'm not at liberty to give out such information.

I don't know what the Myricom cards are priced at, but I have to believe that the Intel cards due for a price drop based on the looming competition from other 10Gbps vendors?? (Maybe it's just wishful thinking?)

Patrick ========= For LAN/WAN Protocol Analysis, check out PacketView Pro! ========= Patrick Klos Email: snipped-for-privacy@klos.com Klos Technologies, Inc. Web:

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- Frantisek.Rysanek
  
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posted
15 years ago

Wed, Jul 23, 2008 9:23 PM

hmm, the Myricom boards seem to be significantly cheaper than Intel, let alone Intel with the Mac driver :-)

Thanks at least for the positive reference regarding the Broadcom- based switch. So far I haven't gathered too many relevant references, so maybe we'll just have to take the risk :-)

etView Pro! =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D

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Klos... reminds me of "Klos PPP", a DOS PPP stack with a packet driver interface. Was that your product? It was neat, quite user friendly, easy to use, and did CHAP, which the competing dosppp05 couldn't do... and the time limit of the demo wasn't much of a problem. The college where I studied had a piece of in-house client-server software for course reservations that ran in DOS over a packet driver, originally written for the Ethernet-based school labs. I used the PPP packet drivers to log in from home over a dial-up to the public internet. It took several semesters till the software got converted to use Winsock (and hence could utilize Windows PPP stacks). That must've been some 10 years ago now :-)

Frank Rysanek