CX-5420 switch: The new all-purpose talent at HPE Aruba
Evolution in HPE switches: The manufacturer is launching the new CX 5420 series, which is designed to remain as flexible as possible.
(Image: HPE Aruba)
- Benjamin Pfister
HPE's 5400 platform is getting a successor: the new CX 5420 modular switches from HPE Aruba are designed to be suitable for different areas of application. The devices offer flexibility for line cards in the access area as well as for small distribution and core levels in campus switching.
Background
The new platform is based on the AOS-CX operating system familiar from the CX-6400 series. The chassis of the CX 5420 measures four height units and has six slots for line cards and two additional management modules.
Power is supplied via up to four power supply units with 1600 watts each, in particular to provide the required PoE output power. For cooling, the switch uses a fan tray with a fixed flow direction from front to back.
With a throughput of up to 480 Gbit/s per direction (960 Gbit/s combined) on the entire chassis and 80 Gbit/s per direction (160 Gbit/s combined) per line card, the system offers a performance that is more likely to be found in the access area or on small distribution levels. The Aruba Virtual Switching Extension (VSX) enables Multi-Chassis Link Aggregation (LAG) with LACP and handles VSX Live Upgrades for fast and non-disruptive system updates.
In addition, all line cards are equipped with MACsec support on the hardware side. HPE Aruba has not yet provided any information on software support. The ASIC has a buffer size of 56 MByte. The system is powered by an AMD Ryzen V1500B. At Layer 3, the switch supports the routing protocols OSPF, BGP and RIP as well as PIM for multicast routing.
Line cards
The available line cards include a 16-port MultiGig copper card with up to 5 Gbit/s and 60 watts PoE, an 8-port MultiGig copper card with up to 10 Gbit/s and 90 watts PoE, as well as several 1G line cards with different PoE options, for example 20 Ă— 1G line cards with 30 watts PoE and integrated 4 Ă— 10G SFP+ or 2 Ă— SFP28 for 25G uplink slots. Other options include an 8-port line card with 10G SFP+ and a 24-port line card with 1G SFP. The switch also offers Always-On PoE on the PoE line cards.
The system will be available to order from November 4 and the manufacturer plans to deliver it from December 2024. All information about the new CX 5420 can be found in the official announcement.
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Assessment
The new platform is more of an evolution than a revolution. This is not usually necessary at access level. HPE Aruba meets the current requirements in this area with multi-gigabit Ethernet and high PoE performance for WLAN access points. The manufacturer is also addressing the increasing uptime requirements with VSX and the hardware support for link encryption via MACsec is to be welcomed in terms of security. However, line cards with 40G or 100G and a little more backplane bandwidth per line card would certainly not have done the switch any harm. In this price-sensitive area, however, it is also about low costs per port. HPE Aruba has not yet named specific prices.
(anw)
