Industry observer Steve Wexler recently reported that Avaya (News - Alert) is updating its Ethernet switch portfolio with six new models.

The new models are “designed to bring the capabilities of its Virtual Enterprise Network Architecture to the edge of the campus network,” Wexler says, adding that the additions to the Ethernet Routing Switch 4000 portfolio offer “plug-and-play capabilities for IP phones,” as well as quality of service management, and support for both Power over Ethernet.

According to Wexler, the company’s Stackable Chassis technology “can handle almost three times more traffic than competing offerings, while consuming 36 percent less energy and offering a 40 percent lower total cost of ownership.”

Avaya officials noted that “Avaya's Virtual Services Fabric extends the reach of virtualized services from the data center to the campus edge, simplifying the network and making it more adaptive and reliable than what is available today.”

They explain that efficient interconnections across the network allow enterprises to better meet the growing peer-to-peer traffic demands of collaborative applications like video, and help ensure optimal performance for tasks like delivering data center-based desktop applications transparently to end users.

Jeff Hardy, network and systems administrator, State University of New York at Potsdam, said the new Avaya ERS 4800 switches offer “a number of features that we have been looking for, from PoE+ and full EAPoL (Extensible Authentication Protocol over LAN) configurability, to redundant swappable power supplies and 10GbE capabilities.”

Rohit Mehra, director, enterprise communications infrastructure, IDC (News - Alert), said "with some good QoS and, more importantly, [Unified Communications]-related integration capabilities, this will give Avaya customers a reason to look at both its voice and data portfolios."

Wexler reports that the timing is “significant,” says Avaya, because a number of Cisco (News - Alert) products are about to be discontinued so customers are evaluating different options. Cisco is the only other vendor that can provide a full communications infrastructure, Avaya officials say.