Thursday, March 15th, 2007
Foundry Jetcore to be discontinued: good news, if you buy used
Foundry Networks has “end-of-life” plans for most of their Jetcore-based modular routers and switches (recall this is their 4th generation product, announced in 2001. Examples are J-FxGMR, J-BxGMR4 management, and all the accompanying J-xxxxx cards and chassis). This is the word I got from a Foundry source recently, and it comes as good news, and bad news, depending. If you buy or sell used equipment, its good news.
The Jetcore-based product line is still very desirable and capable, and sells well on the secondary market. Being discontinued means more of it is likely to come onto the used market, and this is good news. It also means that buying used will be the only way to procure some of the Jetcore gear at some point. But as I said, its still very capable gear, with lots of demand. I would imagine that the Jetcore asic will still be updated and used extensively in lots of “stackable” switches. So what’s the bad news? Well, if you are heavily invested in Jetcore already and need new gear, you will either be forced into used gear