GE NETernity CP923RC Datasheet download pdf (Page 2)

OpenWare feature highlights

The following is a list of features supported by OpenWare. Please

note this is illustrative of what is provided, but is not exhaustive.

There are many other features provided for specific cases, which

GE has omitted as they may not have general appeal.

Works “out of the box”

OpenWare configures switches so that they will run on power up

in a “plug and play” way. In other words, they will, by default, act

as simple layer 2 switches. It’s only as you need more complex

configurations that you need to touch the management interface.

Many customers power up the switch, and have traffic flowing

through it for a long time before they even configure the IP

address of the switch.

User Access

OpenWare provides three levels of user at the Operator Console,

providing a specified level of access to switch functionality. These are:

• Status-onlyuser

This user is able to get status information from the switch, but

not able to change any configuration settings. Perfect for moni-

toring operations.

• Adminuser

This allows full access to the Operator Console menus – providing

configuration control over all normal switch operations.

• Rootuser

This allows access to the underlying Linux system, for cases

where configuration of specific advanced operations is required,

or tasks such as upgrade to the switch software.

Access to these users can be controlled by creation and manage-

ment of passwords.

Userinterfaces

Users can manage an OpenWare switch using a range of

access methods:

• Serialconsole

This is a physical serial port, which allows access to a terminal, typi-

cally a PC, running an ANSI terminal emulator (e.g. Hyperterminal).

• Out-Of-Bandnetworkport(OOB)

This is an Ethernet port that is driven directly by the management

processor, and typically sits on a separate network from the one

in which the switch resides. Telnet, SSH and HTTP are supported

on this interface.

• In-Bandnetworkports

The switch has an address on the network, so the switch can be

managed across that network also. Once again, Telnet, SSH and

HTTP are supported.

The interfaces provided to the user are:

• CommandLineInterface(accessedviaconsole,telnet,orSSH)

This is a character-based interface, allowing use of a compre-

hensive menu-driven command structure, which provides the

switch management control. It can also allow access to the Linux

command prompt (to the appropriate user.)

• Webinterface

OpenWare provides an HTTP-based set of web pages, with a

simple switch management interface that can be accessed from

a web browser. This gives point and click control over most

switch features.

Switch protocol features

Layer2Features

• Jumboframes

For use in Gigabit networks, frame sizes limited to the original

Ethernet size of about 1500 bytes are not efficient. OpenWare

allows for up to 9K, including for traffic destined to the manage-

ment software.

• VLANs(portbased)

This allows a user to group sets of ports into logical blocks,

separating traffic into “Virtual LANs”

– IEEE 802.1Q

• VLANs(tagged)

This is used to separate traffic into VLANs, based on information

based in the frame header.

– IEEE 802.3ac

• QualityofService

Information in the header is used to prioritize traffic of different

types (e.g. voice or data). A range of capabilities are provided to

handle Class of Service, Differentiated Services, and

Access Control.

– IEEE 802.1p, RFC 2474, 2475, 2597, 3246, 3260

• Stormcontrol

Storm control allows the user to protect the network from “bad

things” happening when nodes are wrongly configured, or from

malicious attacks.

• Filtering

Filters can be set up to change the forwarding of certain frames

– perhaps to block packets matching particular patterns, or pass

traffic from a suspicious address out a certain port.

These can also be configured to block particular traffic –

matching (or partially matching) certain patterns. This is typically

used for firewall type functions.

• Trunking(LinkAggregation)

Groups of ports can be grouped together to provide combined

level of throughput between systems. OpenWare allows this to

be set up either manually, or using the Link Aggregation Control

Protocol (LACP).

– IEEE 802.3ad

• Mirroring

Traffic from one or more ports can be “copied” to another port.

This is typically used to debug network problems.

• PortConfiguration

Ports can be manually or automatically configured in a number

of ways: speed, duplex, fiber/copper, flow control, Pause frame

generation, MTU settings.

Port statistics and configurations are recorded and displayed to

the user

Ports can be manually set up or down (enabled/disabled).

Introduction to Ethernet Switch Management with OpenWare

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GE NETernity CP923RC Datasheet Page 2

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