The Tolly Group Confirms High Throughput and Linear Scalability of Ascend's GRF Multigigabit Router at OC-12 Speeds; Ascend's GRF Multigigabit Router with OC-12 Module Demonstrates Top Performance in Independent Test

Business Wire, Dec 2, 1997

ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 2, 1997--Ascend Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:ASND) today announced results of independent performance tests conducted by The Tolly Group of Ascend's GRF multigigabit router. These tests demonstrated that the GRF 1600 with OC-12 media cards forwarded data from 16 simultaneous ATM OC-12 modules, each filling 100 percent of usable OC-12 bandwidth. According to the test results, each of the GRF 1600's 16 media interface cards forwarded an average of 295,000, 64-byte IP packets per second to a single IP destination delivering an aggregate throughput of 4.7 million pps. The GRF 400 demonstrated virtually identical throughput from each of its four media cards. Test results also showed that performance scaled linearly from one OC-12 module up to 16 modules in a fully loaded GRF 1600 and to four modules in the GRF 400. The Tolly Group is a strategic consulting firm that provides Fortune 1000 companies vendor-independent assessments of critical corporate technologies.

The Tolly Group also tested the ability of the GRF 1600 to handle forwarding to varying destination addresses to reflect the dynamics of actual network conditions. The GRF 1600 maintained its aggregate throughput and scaled linearly as in the single-destination IP packet tests. For one data stream throughput was 295,604 pps, for two streams it was 553,771 pps, and for 16 streams it was 4,480,309 pps (95.2 percent of the single-destination IP throughput). For all single-destination tests and random-destination tests data streams originating from a media card passed through the backplane to another media card.

"We sent streams of traffic through the GRF 1600 until each of the 16 modules was operating at maximum throughput," said Kevin Tolly, president of The Tolly Group. "Fully loaded, the GRF 1600 routed 100 percent of the usable OC-12 bandwidth for all modules. We also approximated a real-world scenario by forwarding packets to varying Class C IP destination addresses, and found no significant degradation in the performance of the GRF 1600 or GRF 400."

The linear scalability of the GRF 400 and the GRF 1600, confirmed by this independent test, is the result of Ascend's multigigabit routing architecture. This design combines a 16 Gb/s media-independent switch with distributed IP forwarding and route management giving network service providers the enabling technology to route IP at unprecedented packet rates over ATM OC-12.

Ascend is the only vendor offering ATM OC-12 support on its multigigabit router. This is important for network service providers (NSPs) because of the tremendous demand to add capacity in their backbone networks to support more users and higher-speed access and backbone technologies. With the GRF multigigabit router, NSPs can optimize the use of expensive OC-12 bandwidth while offering consistent high-performance network services to their customers.

Because the GRF 1600 can maintain OC-12 speeds and supports up to 16 modules with no performance degradation, NSPs can now meet their growing demands simply by adding an ATM OC-12 media card. This avoids the cost of forklift upgrades and time-consuming installation and testing.

Providing 16 media card slots in under 23 inches of vertical rack space, the GRF 1600 is the highest density multigigabit router available today. By deploying a high-density OC-12 solution, NSPs can purchirector for Ascend's Core Systems Division. "that is required for today's IP backbone. We haor e-mail info@ascend.com.

Ascend is headquartered at One Ascend Plaza, 1701 Harbor Bay Parkway, Alameda, Calif., 94502. Phone 800/ASCEND4; Fax 510/747-2300.

About The Tolly Group

The Tolly Group provides strucia.graziano@ascend.com

or

Gallagher PR

Jeannette Bitz, 510/747-2058

jbitz@ascend.com

KEYWORD: CALIFORNIA