Liberty Systems & Software

Background

I first came across HP's A5500 switches when i started looking at configuring VRRP and distributed trunking to provide routing redundancy for the core of a client's campus network using two ProCurve 5400 switches. I found that i could get a new pair of A5500s for around the same price as the software license upgrade on the 5400s (multicast routing, distributed trunking, and OSPF cost extra), and they came with a much broader range of features.

It appears that Apple has finally worked out that they make bad servers and deprecated the Xserve.  Their solution?  Run your server OS on a workstation or mini PC.  Hmmmm....  What's more, their workstation mounted in a rack configuration takes up a whopping 6 RU.

A lot of my work involves network tracing (hence my recent wiki page), and it would be great if i could do this with a really simple, transportable device. Ideally it would have these characteristics:

• Pocket-sized, lightweight
• Two Gigabit Ethernet ports configured as a bridge, so that it can be placed inline on any network connection without affecting traffic flow.
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