I have personally read the report and the author uses poor and inconsistent methodology. The author compares SoHo products with enterprise class products. Of course the enterprise class products will be using more power than a SoHo switch, but the enterprise class router will offer far more performance, functionality and reliability. The exact products are not stated in report. How can you make an evaluation of products without telling the reader what exactly you are evaluating? Finally, the report just takes the max power usage of each product to calculate its evaluation. That is not an apples to apples comparison since In-Stat has mixed SoHo and enterprise-grade equipment together in one report. There is also no accounting for different loads or the average power use of the product, etc. Just because you read something in a report, doesn't mean you should automatically believe it. In this case, if you look further you find that the report is flawed.
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3 major problems with study
Looking at the In-Stat report, there were several flaws or misleading assumptions made. Another thing to note is that the methodology is missing specific products tested for each vendor.
Here are few observations to consider when reading this report:
1. Not a similar comparison between products sets
a. Non-enterprise class products and enterprise / service provider class switch vendors are compared equally here. SoHo and small business brand switches are inherently going to use less power since they perform less functions, deliver far less performance, less reliable, etc. It is like comparing a Formula 1 race car to a Prius; they have some similarities but they designed for completely different functions.
2. Methodology missing most of the significant details
a. We could not determine what products were being compared here at first review. Are they old legacy products compared with competitor’s newer products? SoHo products compared with enterprise and carrier-class products? We actually found out that In-Stat compared an end-of-sale product, which was meant for very high performance applications, with much newer basic connectivity branch office products. Comparing an old product set with newer competitor offerings is very misleader to the reader.
3. Calculations based off incorrect data
a. Data used in this report was off what companies stated the max power output of the power source can produce. However, for enterprise/SP-class products, the additional power in the power supply is there for resiliency. The switch may only use 50% or so of the power sources capability; thus putting top enterprise/SP class switching products incorrectly at the bottom of the “green” list.
Based off the recent Best of Interop Awards, Foundry had the most “Green” products http://www.foundrynet.com/company/newsroom/pr/2008/04-30-2008.html
Additionally, Foundry is positioned in the highly regarded “leaders” quadrant of the Gartner Global Campus LAN Magic Quadrant 2008 (http://www.foundrynet.com/outbound/lead-gen/2008/gartner-mq.html), making them a very appealing networking vendor to enterprises and service providers worldwide.
Pavel Radda
Marketing Manager
Foundry Networks, Inc.
Ok, but...
According to a few other similar articles, 3Com and Force10 were in the top slots and Foundry was near the bottom. Are Force10 and 3Com not considered Foundry's competitors? Sounds a lot like Foundry is trying to dodge a bullet; at least politely.