GE
Intelligent Platforms
Introduction to Ethernet Switch
Management with OpenWare
Ethernet Switches come in many different
guises, and fulfil many different roles. But,
apart from the very simple (plug-n-play),
they all require some management software
to configure and control them.
OpenWare
™
is GE Intelligent Platform’s
switch management environment, avail-
able exclusively on our NETernity
™
layer 2/3
Ethernet switches. (NETernity, by the way, is
one product family in our extensive Ethernet
switch selection, which is one of the best you’ll
find anywhere.) OpenWare, on our NETer-
nity switch product line, meets the needs of
customers in all types of industries, whether
it’s commercial or military/aerospace.
OpenWare is GNU/Linux-based firmware,
bringing together the best of Open Source
and proprietary switch control, routing and
protocol implementations. This provides the
user with a switch that can be easily config-
ured for any network requirement – from the
trivially simple, through to the very complex.
The flexible OpenWare environment allows
for customization for specific customer
requirements and the incorporation of the
latest standards – for example, new RFCs
(Request For Comments) from the IETF, new
standards from the IEEE or new SNMP MIBs
(Management Information Bases).
The OpenWare switch management
environment provides integrated switch
management services, including configu-
ration, monitoring, switching control,
addressing, routing and all supported
protocols. These can be controlled via a
range of interfaces – a CLI (Command Line
Interface) either locally through a serial
interface, or remotely, using the ubiquitous
Telnet or the secure SSH. Alternatively,
SNMP (Simple Network Management
Protocol) is supported, for customers who
require programmatic control. Recently, GE
has been expanding its simple web inter-
face, allowing “point and click” type access
to switch control. No matter which method
you use to configure your switch, you can
save the configuration so it comes up ready
every time it is started.
For switches that support only layer 2 oper-
ations (i.e. only switch at the MAC address,
not IP address), GE has a cut-down version
of OpenWare (known as “OpenWare Lite”).
This takes exactly the same approach, but
is built without the layer 3 support. So, it still
supports all the protocols that are relevant
at layer 2 (including MSTP, IGMP snooping,
etc) but is simplified by not needing any
layer 3 functionality. OpenWare Lite is still
a full GNU/Linux environment, meaning
that it can be accessed in the same way,
(Telnet,SSH, SNMP, Web) and has the same
management interfaces – both IPv4 and
IPv6 addresses.
Increasingly, the support of IPv6 addressing
is important to customers in order provide a
future proof path from IPv4 to IPv6 - a Layer
3 OpenWare switch provides support –
addressing, routing, multicast and tunneling
– for both IP addressing schemes. This is
true for both L3 and L2 switches, since on
L2 switches the fabric is agnostic to the
version of IP running in the network.
Networks are increasingly making use of
multicast traffic, for example in IP surveil-
lance systems. It is important that these
multicast streams, which may include video,
are only forwarded to devices which are
registered to receive it. OpenWare provides
support for IGMP Snooping and MLD
Snooping in IPv6 networks which provides a
mechanism for managing dynamically the
multicast forwarding behavior of the switch.
Security is another area which has been
increasing in importance to customers – an
OpenWare switch provides methods to set
up secure access to a network through
switch ports, and provide indications and
logs of potential security violations to the
administrator.
So, next time you are considering which
embedded Ethernet switch is best for your
upcoming project, keep in mind the time and
hassle you can save with a well-conceived
and well-designed toolset like OpenWare.
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