Leading Online Gaming Portal Upgrades to 10 Gigabit Ethernet and Increases Predictable Performance With Force10 TeraScale E-Series

Business Wire, June 7, 2006

MILPITAS, Calif. -- Force10 Networks today announced that Neowiz, a leading South Korea-based entertainment portal, has deployed the TeraScale E-Series family of switch/routers in a 10 Gigabit Ethernet upgrade to increase the scalability and predictable performance of its online gaming, music and community networks. With leading density and resiliency, the Force10 TeraScale E-Series allows Neowiz to seamlessly scale its network to deliver new services and support more than 40 online games with millions of simultaneous users.

"Our network requires a very high level of bandwidth with absolute resiliency to provide the most dynamic gaming experience possible," said Sang-Shin Lee, manager of the Systems Operations Group at Neowiz. "The Force10 TeraScale E-Series supports unmatched performance characteristics in a scalable, high density platform, allowing us to deliver Korea's premier gaming service."

As an entertainment portal, Neowiz provides its more than 20 million subscribers with online gaming and music services as well as a place to create virtual community spaces and build individual homepages. Each of these services requires the high availability that only a resilient network can deliver. Resiliency is particularly important for online gaming, a rapidly growing segment of Neowiz's business. With the Force10 TeraScale E-Series anchoring the core of its network, Neowiz has the reliable foundation it needs to support online games in which tens of thousands of players interact in virtual worlds.

The Force10 TeraScale E600 also provides 10 Gigabit Ethernet peering directly to the Internet with 20 Gigabits per second throughput within the core of the gaming network. Supporting 630 Gigabit and 112 Ten Gigabit Ethernet ports in a single system, the TeraScale E600 delivers the high density Neowiz requires to aggregate the thousands of servers on which its games reside, reducing complexity within the core of the network and increasing efficiency.

"To effectively support millions of customers, Neowiz requires a network that can efficiently scale to accommodate both new games and new gamers while ensuring continuous availability and predictable performance," said Mark Cooper, senior vice president of worldwide sales at Force10 Networks. "The TeraScale E-Series brings to Neowiz the combination of high density and resiliency that allows the company to seamlessly expand its network as it continues to innovate in the online gaming market."

Neowiz has more than 40 online game titles in service, including Special Force, the most popular online game in Korea. As of March 2006, more than eight million gamers have played Special Force.

The high density and scalability of the Force10 TeraScale E-Series makes it an ideal solution for online gaming networks that demand the highest network resiliency to ensure the continuous play that is akin to offline games. Earlier this year, SEGA Corp deployed the TeraScale E-Series in its consolidated gaming network. South Korea-based NCsoft has also expanded the capacity and increased the resiliency of its gaming network with the TeraScale E-Series.

About Force10 Networks

Force10 Networks is the pioneer in building and securing 10 Gigabit Ethernet networks. 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, S-Series, P-Series, TeraScale and FTOS are trademarks of Force10 Networks, Inc. All other company names are trademarks of their respective holders.