NPI to Support Novell Directory Services In All NuWaveArchitecture Gigabit Ethernet Routing Switches

Business Wire, June 11, 1999

MILPITAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 11, 1999--

Support For Market-Leading NDS(TM) Enables Policy-Based

Networking and Quality of Service (QoS) in NPI's Wire-Speed,

Non-Blocking NuWaveArchitecture(TM)

Network Peripherals Inc. (NPI)(Nasdaq:NPIX), an innovative leader in the network switching industry, today announced it has signed an agreement with Novell(R) Inc. to support Novell Directory Services(R) (NDS(TM)).

The company said that NDS support will be included with every model in NPI's newly announced line of Gigabit Ethernet Layer 3 switches "Powered by NuWaveArchitecture(TM)" in the 4th quarter of 1999.

NDS is Novell's market-leading, award-winning directory services solution. Via NDS, system administrators will be able, remotely and securely, to manage and configure every aspect of NPI's new Layer 3 switches -- IP routing, virtual local-area networks (VLANs), IP multicast, traffic class priorities and other Layer 3 and Layer 4 capabilities that NPI plans to add in the future.

"We are excited to add to our NuWaveArchitecture support for the networking industry's most powerful and popular directory services," said Bill Rosenberger, president and CEO of NPI.

"This announcement not only underscores our commitment to compatibility and integration with today's most-requested products and standards, but forms a starting point for future collaboration with Novell in the important area of directory services and directory-enabled, policy-based networking," Rosenberger added.

"We are pleased with the innovative efforts of NPI to integrate NDS into their NuWaveArchitecture and their commitment to the Novell partnership," said Chris Stone, Sr. vice president, Strategy and Corporate Development at Novell. "Novell leads the market in directory services, and directory-enabled networking is increasingly critical to enterprises large and small," Stone added.

"Integration of NDS support into the NuWaveArchitecture adds powerful, important flexibility and manageability to NPI's already impressive roster of features and advantages," said Jerry McDowell, vice president Worldwide Marketing at NPI.

"Directory-enabled networking will be increasingly important to enterprise networkers, and NPI's support for NDS will help them build better networks," McDowell added.

NPI NDS = Directory-Enabled, Policy-Based Networks

When enhanced with support for NDS, hardware such as NPI's Gigabit switches "Powered by NuWaveArchitecture" can be configured and managed based on the rules, rights and permissions granted by network administrators to individuals, not just on specific IP network addresses.

Once administrators establish and deploy policies for authorized users, NPI's NDS-enabled switches will configure themselves based on these policies, allowing administrators to oversee security, priorities of access and Quality of Service (QoS) features centrally, remotely and securely.

Network managers can leverage NDS to guarantee bandwidth to certain users, groups, or applications via NPI's switches. All NuWaveArchitecture switches will read and implement all policies set via NDS, which means that all authorization, authentication and management functions can be controlled for every NPI switch via NDS, with no separate utilities required.

NDS supports the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), the de facto standard for accessing directory information over the Internet or corporate intranets. Every NPI switch can now be securely managed from any network access point, a critical feature to managers using NPI switches to build or grow virtual private networks (VPNs).

NPI Works With Dorado Software to Add QoS and other layer 4

Functionality to NDS and NPI Switches

In addition to supporting Novell's NDS, NPI has also entered into a development agreement with Dorado Software (www.doradosoftware.com), El Dorado Hills, Calif., a leading supplier of policy management software for service providers.

Dorado's policy and service assurance management applications, called RedCell, will be modified and enabled with Novell NDS support to provide the most powerful and useful policy management application available. These RedCell applications will be designed to provide a complete, integrated development environment.

RedCell applications will integrate with the enhanced features of NDS as well as other industry standard management applications such as Hewlett-Packard's OpenView.

The policy management and service assurance applications will allow management via NDS and NuSight of Layer 4 features to be added to NPI's NuWaveArchitecture and switches. These interfaces will allow network administrators to deploy and manage enhanced QoS and Class of Service (CoS) features within NPI switches from any authorized NDS console that can access the corporate network.

Users will therefore be able to consolidate management of critical networking hardware and applications, which will lower costs, shorten response times to problems and increase operational efficiency.

NPI expects to begin making these Layer 4 applications and interfaces available to select partners and customers during the 4th quarter of 1999. Interested parties should contact NPI for more information.