ODS Networks Wins $7 Million Silicon Graphics Contract for World's Fastest Networking Switch

Business Wire, August 12, 1998

RICHARDSON, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 12, 1998--

Gigabyte System Network Switch To Form Nucleus of World's Largest Data Network -- U.S. Dept. of Energy's $121.5 Million ASCI Program -- Developed by Silicon Graphics

ODS(R) Networks(TM), Inc. (Nasdaq:ODSI), has signed a contract worth $7 million to provide its networking switches -- the world's fastest -- to Silicon Graphics, Inc. as part of their $122 million contract with Los Alamos National Laboratory for the Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI) program.

Under the contract, ODS Networks (ODS) will provide 11 switches through its Essential division to Silicon Graphics(R) based on Essential's upcoming Gigabyte System Network (GSN) or HIPPI (HIgh Performance Parallel Interface) 6400 standard, acknowledged as the world's fastest switching technology. The U.S. Department of Energy's ASCI program will use supercomputer simulations as a substitute for underground nuclear weapons testing.

As part of theDepartment of Energy's Stockpile Stewardship Program, ASCI is a key component of the U.S. Government's commitment toward the Nuclear Weapon Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty signed by President Clinton in 1993.

"We evaluated many different technologies for the ASCI program and found ODS' GSN 6400 product to be an excellent candidate for this job," said Mark Goldman, Director of Government Programs at Silicon Graphics. "This computer system will be one of the fastest and largest in the world, capable of 3 trillion transactions per second, and we are confident that ODS will be a great teammate in providing the core of the ASCI networking solution."

"This contract represents a significant investment by ODS in GSN technology," said Michael McGowen, President of the Essential division. "We are pleased to be delivering our first GSN products to one of our key development partners, Silicon Graphics."

About the GSN 6400 Switch

Each port on ODS' 32-port GSN 6400 switch is able to transfer 6400 megabits of data for an aggregate switch bandwidth of 512 gigabits per second. This data rate offers a substantial performance leap over other available high-speed networking technologies, including Gigabit Ethernet, ATM and Fibre Channel. Multiple GSN switches, along with other GSN network interface cards and cables, will form the core of the entire ASCI system. It will allow processors throughout the system to communicate data with low latency and high bandwidth, thus achieving the highest sustainable performance relative to the system's peak 3 Teraflop capacity.

The GSN technology offers organizations a clearly defined way to connect numerous environments at very high speeds and is being used wherever organizations require timely movement of large amounts of information in such areas as scientific and technical computing, data mining, transaction processing and video and film archiving. ODS's GSN 6400 switch is based on the ANSI standard HIPPI 6400 and offers an eight-fold improvement over current HIPPI 800 technology, one of the highest performing standards-based interconnect currently available.

About ODS Networks

ODS Networks, Inc. enterprise networking products include a complete range of enterprise, workgroup, and remote access networking products for large and mid-range organizations, including its award-winning InfiniteSwitch(TM) and its LANBlazer(TM) Gigabit Ethernet switch. The ODS SecureCom(TM) family offers the premier secure LAN infrastructure solution for on-line intrusion detection, asset protection, and auditing. Its recent acquisition of Essential Communications has allowed it to extend its line of high performance network products to leading-edge High Performance Parallel Interface (HIPPI) switches, network interface cards (NICs) and modems. Upcoming HIPPI products will include a next-generation Gigabyte System Network (GSN) switch, based upon the HIPPI-6400 networking standard, that will move media at more than six times the speed of current Fibre Channel or Gigabit Ethernet solutions.

About ODS' Essential Subsidiary

In May 1998, ODS acquired Essential Communications, now called Essential, an ODS Networks Company, a market leader in High Performance Parallel Interface (HIPPI) technology. Essential is an ODS Networks subsidiary. Essential focuses on providing affordable, end-to-end gigabit networking solutions used in workgroups, backbones, cluster computing, storage management and visual computing. Its GSN and HIPPI networking product families include switches and network interface cards.

For more information call 888/ODS-7770 or visit our website at www.ods.com.

Note to Editors: ODS is a registered trademark of ODS Networks, Inc. ODS Networks, LANBlazer, InfiniteSwitch, and SecureCom are trademarks of ODS Networks, Inc. Silicon Graphics and the Silicon Graphics logo are registered trademarks of Silicon Graphics, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies.

    CONTACT: PRTek, Inc.
              Penny Rackley, 512/847-3559
              pennrack@wimberley-tx.com
                or
              ODS Networks, Inc.
              Dru Popper-Lopez, 505/344-0080 x312
              dpopper@ods.com