Foundry Networks Enters Core Internet Router Market with Ultra-High Performing IP Core Router

Business Wire, Jan 25, 2000

Business Editors/High-tech Writers

ComNet 2000 - Booth No. 4002

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 25, 2000

NetIron 400/800 LAN/WAN capabilities for Internet Service

Providers to be announced at ComNet Booth No. 4002

Foundry Networks(TM), Inc. (Nasdaq: FDRY) today announced the rollout of NetIron400(TM) and NetIron800(TM), one of the industry's highest performing Internet core routers.

The NetIron 400/800 is specifically designed to satisfy the exploding bandwidth requirements of growth-oriented Web hosting firms and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) today, and in the future. NetIron 400/800 products are currently installed or in acceptance testing with some of the world's leading service providers, including Exodus and Telocity.

&uot;The explosive growth and use of the Internet is creating an enormous desire for ultra-high performance, reliable and scalable data communications devices,&uot; said Jim McInerney, Executive Vice President of Engineering for Exodus, a leader in complex Internet hosting and managed services. &uot;We have done extensive evaluation of several high-speed routers and selected Foundry's NetIron800 due to its excellent performance, reliability and price,&uot; continued McInerney.

Unmatched Throughput

Delivering up to 256 Gbps of superior switching capacity, the NetIron800 8-slot (NI800) and NetIron400 4-slot (NI400) modular chassis alleviates performance bottlenecks with wire-speed IP routing. Built upon Foundry's unique IronCore(TM) architecture and IronWare(TM) software platform, NetIron 400/800 reliably delivers up to 90 million packets per second (Mpps) even under the heaviest of Internet traffic loads.

IronClad Flexibility

NetIron 400/800 offers a full range of cost-effective, high-speed, high-density, and high-performance LAN/MAN/WAN switch modules, and provides support ranging from 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet to OC-48c/STM-16 with scalability to OC-192c/STM-64 and 10 Gigabit Ethernet. All fiber WAN switch modules provide Short (2Km), Medium (15-20Km) and Long (20-70Km) reach distances, enabling the ISP or enterprise customer to design a networking topology applicable to their current and future needs. Foundry offers a cost efficient way to incrementally add Gigabit Ethernet to the Internet core - simply add the appropriate low cost GBIC into the management module. In addition, NetIron 400/800 supports 150km links for building Gigabit Ethernet MANs.

&uot;Many ISPs have a great desire to build continuously available, high performance POPs and GigaPOPs by integrating the LAN and WAN core infrastructures into a single device.&uot; said Todd Hanson, Senior Analyst for Dataquest. &uot;In addition, ISPs will continually seek solutions that leverage the use of long haul optics, which support distances up to 150km, to build super fast LAN/MAN/WAN POPs,&uot; continued Mr. Hanson.

Available in both a full size (12 rack units) and compact (5 rack units) modular chassis, the NetIron 400/800 Internet core router is one of the most compact and highest-performing IP routing platform for private networks, metropolitan area networks, hosting sites, public networks, and core backbones in the market today. Interchangeable switch modules, management modules, and power supplies between the two chassis models means NetIron 400/800 provides flexibility for long-term expansive networking growth. As well, NetIron 400/800 does not limit network designs with reserved interface slots. Place any module, including a redundant management module, in any open slot without restriction.

IronClad Management Modules

NetIron 400/800 offers multipurpose management modules, orderable with or without GBIC-based LAN expansion ports. Both the NetIron400 and NetIron800 include extended flash memory, two PCMCIA type II card slots, support for out of band network management, and a powerful management and route processor. NetIron 400/800 provides full route management redundancy when configured with multiple redundant management modules.

IronCore Architecture

The IronCore architecture consists of a parallel crosspoint switch fabric backplane and switch modules that equally distribute IP processing load. This establishes reliable performance and avoids head-of-line blocking, common to many of today's high-speed switching routers. Each switch module provides 32 Gbps of switching capacity and the parallel crosspoint switch fabric contributes 128 Gbps of packet switching throughput. Joined together through 16 Gbps full duplex data paths, module-to-module packet forwarding occurs with minimal latency for all traffic flows.

Each switch module also handles the replication of multicast traffic in hardware providing a high level of performance. Support for RIP, OSPF and BGP4 along with PIM-SM, PIM-DM, DVMRP and hardware-based IP multicast provides seamless interoperability with currently installed networks.

Access Control Lists (ACL) enable users to control network traffic and limit network access. When deployed by other vendors, ACL usage significantly impacts device performance, but Foundry supports a full ACL implementation while maintaining wire-speed packet forwarding.