Tower Hill Insurance Increases Network Scalability and Reliable Performance with Force10 Networks TeraScale E-Series

Business Wire, Sept 6, 2005

MILPITAS, Calif. -- Force10 Networks today announced that Florida-based Tower Hill Insurance Group has selected the Force10 TeraScale E-Series to bring increased scalability and reliable performance to its network. With the industry's leading Gigabit Ethernet density, the TeraScale E1200 enables Tower Hill to more rapidly backup more than four Terabits of data nightly, in addition to providing the scalability that will enable cost effective network expansion in the future.

"With the large volume of information we process and backup nightly, we need an advanced resilient network that supports and enhances our business, making us more competitive in the industry," said Brian Elsmore, Chief Information Officer at Tower Hill Insurance Group, one of the leading property and casualty insurers in Florida. "The Force10 E-Series allows us to build the long-term scalability and reliability into our network that enabled us to reduce our backup time from as many as seven hours to one."

With regulations requiring insurance companies to maintain copies of all claims and supporting information, the traffic on Tower Hill's network doubles every two years. To more efficiently process its claims and all associated information, Tower Hill leverages a web-based infrastructure supported on more than 100 servers.

At the foundation of its network is the TeraScale E1200, aggregating all servers and connecting Tower Hill's agents. The high Gigabit Ethernet density of the TeraScale E1200 enables Tower Hill to collapse two layers of its network into one, reducing complexity as well as capital and operational expenditures. Additionally, with 672 line-rate Gigabit Ethernet ports, the TeraScale E1200 provides TowerHill with the backbone capacity to ensure predictable performance at all times.

"In a heavily regulated industry like insurance, where records must be stored and backed up on a nearly daily basis, it is essential that the network is both highly predictable and reliable," said Andrew Feldman, vice president of marketing at Force10 Networks. "The TeraScale E-Series alone provides the unique combination of scalability and resiliency that allows Tower Hill to leverage their network as a strategic asset that can grow with the business."

Leveraging the significant and widespread demand for high performance equipment that brings increased resiliency to the network, Force10 has expanded its customer base into a variety of new vertical markets, including the government, service providers, portals, oil and gas, media and entertainment and now insurance. These verticals all have high bandwidth needs and require a scalable and reliable solution to ensure their networks are strategic assets that enable competitive advantages.

The Force10 TeraScale E-Series supports industry-leading densities, providing an unmatched level of scalability that enables IT managers to more cost effectively build their networks to accommodate traffic today and in the future.

Additional information on how Tower Hill is utilizing the TeraScale E-Series can be found at:

http://www.force10networks.com/applications/profiles.asp

About Force10 Networks

Force10 Networks is the pioneer in high performance switching and routing. Based on a revolutionary system architecture that delivers best-in-class resiliency and massive scalability, Force10's TeraScale E-Series switch/routers ensure predictable application performance, increase network availability, and reduce operating costs. Today, many of the world's largest Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet networks depend on Force10 Networks. For additional information, please visit the company's website at www.force10networks.com.

Force10, E-Series and S-Series are trademarks of Force10 Networks, Inc. All other company names are trademarks of their respective holders.