SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 12, 1998--
First Major Vendor to Ship Gigabit Ethernet
and Layer 3 Devices for the Enterprise
Reinforcing its commitment to leading the new routing switch
market, Bay Networks(R), Inc. (NYSE:BAY) today announced volume
shipment of its Accelar(TM) 1000 routing switch product family.
Routing switches are a new class of product that turbocharge
campus networks with the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of
traditional Layer 2 switches and wire-speed, low-latency IP
performance. Bay Networks offers the most comprehensive family of
routing switch products on the market today.
The Accelar 1000 product family includes the workgroup Accelar
1100 and two modular versions, the Accelar 1200 and Accelar 1250,
targeted at high-performance workgroup, wiring closet and network
center applications.
Current Accelar 1000 customers include: Dreamworks LLC; Duke
Energy, one of the largest energy providers in the U.S.; EMC
Corporation, a leading enterprise storage solution provider; Miami
Dade Community College, the largest community college in the U.S.,
Nielsen Media Research; and the School of Visual Arts in New York
City, the largest independent college of the arts.
"The Accelar 1200 routing switch is the only Layer 3 device we've
found to provide the density and performance we needed for the size of
our operation," said John Booth, manager of data networks for Nielsen
Media Research. "Because of its reliability and redundancy features,
we feel extremely comfortable installing the Accelar 1200 in the core
of our production network."
"The market is in transition as customers move from slower
software-based routers to high-performance switching products that
perform routing in hardware. These new hardware-based products
increase the speed while lowering the cost and complexity of our
customers' networks," said Lloyd Carney, executive vice president and
general manager for Bay Networks' Enterprise Business Group. "Bay
Networks is the first major vendor to ship a routing switch product
family with both Layer 3 and Gigabit Ethernet capabilities, strongly
positioning us at the forefront of this new market."
About the Accelar 1000 Routing Switches
Accelar routing switches provide dramatic performance
improvements in today's networks because they are optimized to route
IP. The Accelar routing switch products combine the performance of
Ethernet Layer 2 switching with the intelligence of IP routing at
wire-speed.
The first three members of the Accelar 1000 family include
eight-slot, four-slot and stackable models which support 10 Mbps
Ethernet, 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet and 1000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet
transmission speeds; the family's high-end model offers up to 96
10/100 Mbps ports or 12 Gigabit Ethernet ports.
All ports perform Layer 2 and Layer 3 switching and provide
flexible policy-based virtual LAN and prioritization features at
wirespeed. Aggregate bandwidth is over seven Gbps, and minimum-size
packets (64 bytes or larger) can be routed or switched at more than
seven million packets per second.
The distributed hardware-based architecture of the Accelar 1000
products enables them to provide capabilities such as:
protocol-sensitive VLANs which allow on-going support for legacy
protocols; priority queuing which provides support for Quality of
Service and Class of Service applications; and IP Multicast support.
These features enable existing enterprise networks to migrate
easily to high-speed, high-function intranets without requiring a
costly and disruptive backbone overhaul.
Unlike other proprietary approaches to improving IP performance,
the Bay Networks Accelar routing switches leverage existing IP without
requiring complex new protocols or expensive network upgrades for the
existing routers, switches or adapters. The Accelar routing switches
can be plugged into an existing network, without the need for intense
configuration or rewiring.
Routing switches are also expected to be the dominant approach
for deploying Gigabit Ethernet in campus networks, since they address
the bandwidth issues that Gigabit speeds create in those environments.
The Accelar 1000 product family is the first set of products from Bay
Networks to support Gigabit Ethernet technology.
"The high-performance route-switch will be the device of choice
for campus backbones and even high-density workgroups, providing
customers with 10 times the performance over a standard router
solution at one tenth the cost," said Esmeralda Silva, senior analyst
at International Data Corporation.
Bay Networks' philosophy and experience behind building
industrial-strength ATM and router-based networks is seamlessly
carried over to the Accelar product line with built-in reliability and
redundancy features, including redundant switch fabrics, redundant
link capabilities and redundant power supplies.
These capabilities have enabled Bay Networks to easily scale
customer networks to thousands of desktops. The Accelar 1000 routing
switch products also have comprehensive network management support via
Bay Networks' industry-leading Optivity(R) Network Management
applications.
Pricing and Availability
The Accelar 1000 routing switch product family is shipping and
available now. Pricing is as follows:
The Accelar 1200 routing switch, with an eight-slot modular
chassis, provides up to 96 10/100 Mbps ports and up to 12 Gigabit
Ethernet ports, and features optional dual redundant silicon switch
fabric modules for hot standby and redundant load-balanced power
supplies.
The Accelar 1250 routing switch, with a modular four-slot
chassis, provides up to 48 10/100 Mbps ports and up to six Gigabit
Ethernet ports. Module pricing for both the Accelar 1200 and Accelar
1250 is $625 per 10/100 Mbps port -- pricing which is comparable to
many of today's Layer 2 switches with added functionality -- and
$2,750 for a Gigabit Ethernet port. An entry-level modular
configuration is priced at $22,500.
The Accelar 1100 stackable routing switch provides 16 10/100 Mbps
ports and includes two mini-slots that support a number of expansion
modules including a two-port Gigabit Ethernet module or an eight-port
10/100 Mbps Ethernet module. Pricing is $624 per 10/100 Ethernet port
or $2,625 per Gigabit port. An entry-level configuration is list
priced at $12,000. |
