Hopefully this announcement is the start of another flurry of them.
Attention Business Editors:
NEWBRIDGE NETWORKS' VIVID SOLUTION SELECTED BY BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE FOR NEW, STATE-OF-THE-ART NETWORK
Baylor to Deploy VIVID Layer 3 Switched Routing Solution for
Collaborative Scientific Visualization Applications Used in
Leading-Edge Structural Biology Research
HERNDON, Virginia, Oct. 22 /CNW/ - Newbridge Networks today announced
that Baylor College of Medicine of Houston, Texas, one of the leading medical
schools in the United States, has selected the Newbridge(R) VIVID(TM) switched
routing solution as the foundation of its network. The VIVID system, based on
the ATM Forum's Multiprotocol Over ATM (MPOA) standard, enables Baylor to
implement demanding applications including three-dimensional radiography,
voice/video transmission, and scientific visualization, which is the display
of high-resolution images of biological structures for medical research.
''We realized we needed to take a more comprehensive approach to our
network to maintain Baylor's pre-eminence among medical colleges,'' said
Robert Beck, M.D., Baylor's Chief Information Officer and Vice President of
Information Technology. ''Our switched routing network has already been
instrumental in winning several large research grants and in recruiting
pre-eminent faculty and top-notch students. We are now able to do scientific
collaboration over the network instead of swapping tapes or getting together
face-to-face. For example, we have a group doing leading-edge structural
biology research where viruses such as HIV are being studied in ways that
could never be accomplished without high-speed computation and networking.''
Baylor's original network consisted of a backbone about a mile in length
with several local area networks (LANs) connecting three hospitals and 11
buildings. As with many academic institutions, Baylor's network grew
according to the needs of the moment rather than by a comprehensive plan.
Eventually, network managers at Baylor could no longer manage the chaotic
networking environment. The college was experiencing outages and capacity
issues as well as brown-outs in mission-critical areas.
''We were trying to do a lot with our network. We planned to put all
traffic on one network and manage it as a single entity. We wanted to move
smoothly and quickly to gigabit speed and didn't feel we could wait for
another generation of Ethernet technology. So we decided to go with ATM as it
is the only technology that can do it all today,'' said Chris Young, Director
of Network Services for Baylor. ''We also wanted a networking architecture
that, with upgrades, would last 10 to 15 years. With the VIVID system, as our
requirements grow, we can expand and evolve the network simply.''
Baylor chose the VIVID solution after an extensive vendor selection
process comparing performance, bandwidth availability, ease of set-up and
deployment, scalability, and network management. Newbridge products
outperformed the competition particularly in supporting video and other
high-bandwidth multimedia applications.
''We are pleased to be working with Baylor College of Medicine to build a
network that will facilitate important medical research,'' said Eric Andrews,
Assistant Vice President of Marketing for VIVID at Newbridge Networks.
''VIVID's standards-based Layer 3 switching technology is ideal for the
voice/video transmission applications used frequently in the medical field for
research, patient care and administrative applications.''
Baylor is connecting a Siemens / Newbridge MainStreetXpress(TM) 36170
Multiservices Switch in the main computer center to VIVID ATM switches
installed in each of the seven main buildings on campus. Within each
building, VIVID switches are used on each floor to connect with VIVID Fast
Ethernet (100 BaseT) Orange Ridges that map LAN traffic over the switching
network. From the VIVID Orange Ridges, copper or fiber is run out to lab
workstations, offices or desktops.
The VIVID family of high-performance LAN internetworking products
delivers a powerful solution to meet the demands of today's enterprise network
environments. With highly scalable, wire-speed routing capability, VIVID
products are ideal for meeting the performance requirements for high-speed
LAN, multimedia and intranet applications. Based on the MPOA standard, the
VIVID switched routing architecture is the only standards-compliant, Layer 3
switching solution available today that eliminates the performance bottlenecks
and management complexity of conventional router network designs. VIVID
products also enable extensive virtual networking capabilities, allowing
customers to define policies for governing user behavior and enhancing
application performance.
Newbridge Networks (www.vivid.newbridge.com) designs, manufactures,
markets and services a comprehensive family of networking products and systems
that delivers the power of multimedia communications solutions to
organizations in more than 100 countries throughout the world. Newbridge
products are the choice of an expanding range of customers which includes the
world's 200 largest telecommunications service providers, and more than 10,000
corporations, government organizations, and other institutions. The company
has facilities throughout Canada, the United States, Latin America, Europe,
the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.
Newbridge Networks Corporation is a public company whose common shares
are listed for trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NN) in the United
States and on The Toronto Stock Exchange (NNC) in Canada.
-0- 10/22/97
For further information: Press and Industry Analysts: Catherine Palmen (408) 562-7983, cpalmen@us.newbridge.com; Financial Analysts: John Lawlor (613) 591-3600, john_lawlor@qmail.newbridge.com |
