RFC 2285 (rfc2285) - Page 2 of 25

Benchmarking Terminology for LAN Switching Devices

RFC 2285                Benchmarking Terminology           February 1998


         3.7.3 Head of line blocking  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
      3.8 Address handling  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
         3.8.1 Address caching capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
         3.8.2 Address learning rate  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
         3.8.3 Flood count  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
      3.9 Errored frame filtering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
         3.9.1 Errored frames . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
      3.10 Broadcasts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
         3.10.1 Broadcast forwarding rate at maximum load . . . . . . 22
         3.10.2 Broadcast latency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
   4. Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
   5. References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
   6. Acknowledgements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
   7. Author's Address. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
   8. Full Copyright Statement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

1. Introduction

   This document is intended to provide terminology for the benchmarking
   of local area network (LAN) switching devices.  It extends the
   terminology already defined for benchmarking network interconnect
   devices in RFCs 1242 and 1944 to switching devices.

   Although it might be found useful to apply some of the terms defined
   here to a broader range of network interconnect devices, this RFC
   primarily deals with devices which switch frames at the Medium Access
   Control (MAC) layer.  It defines terms in relation to the traffic put
   to use when benchmarking switching devices, forwarding performance,
   congestion control, latency, address handling and filtering.

2.  Existing definitions

   RFC 1242 "Benchmarking Terminology for Network Interconnect Devices"
   should be consulted before attempting to make use of this document.
   RFC 1944 "Benchmarking Methodology for Network Interconnect Devices"
   contains discussions of a number of terms relevant to the
   benchmarking of switching devices and should also be consulted.

   For the sake of clarity and continuity this RFC adopts the template
   for definitions set out in Section 2 of RFC 1242.  Definitions are
   indexed and grouped together in sections for ease of reference.

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED",  "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.






Mandeville                   Informational