Fore Downgrades Gigabit Ethernet, Bats for ATM
Newsbytes - March 17, 1998 12:54
%NETWORK %HKG FORE V%NEWSBYTES P%NBYT
MANILA, PHILIPPINES, 1998 MAR 17 -- By Joel D. Pinaroc, Metropolitan Computer Times. Networking vendor Fore Systems [NASDAQ:FORE] says that, despite the market hype created by Gigabit Ethernet, asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) "is still the way to go for corporate networks."
Michael Ladam, product line manager, Fore Systems, who was recently in the Philippines for a product launch, said that today's network's need an "intelligent infrastructure" that he claimed, only an ATM backbone can provide.
Ladam added that Ethernet-based technologies "will remain important at the edge" but ultimately, corporate networks will demand capabilities that only ATM can provide.
Ladam was referring to Gigabit Ethernet, which according to him, has yet to hurdle a number of technical and standards problems.
"The traditional networking technologies have evolved over time and they are being asked to do things they were never originally designed to do," Ladam said. "The demand is for bigger, faster, and more secure networks -- the things that Ethernet is evolving to accommodate but are already designed into ATM."
Ladam also noted that upgrade of existing Ethernet into Gigabit Ethernet requires substantial investment, without the quality of service (QoS) guarantee, that an ATM-based network can give.
Ladam pointed out that customers who may want to upgrade to Gigabit Ethernet will have to deal with numerous add-on network "solutions" that will inevitably require more investment.
"The rate of change for today's network is increasing," Ladam said. "Customers are finding it increasingly difficult to cope with change, and network costs are spiraling out of control," he added. Today, there are a lot of new applications, bigger and faster networks, better security, more moves, adds, and changes, affecting the network, he said.
Ladam stressed that, compared to Gigabit Ethernet, ATM solves "all the fundamental issues in networking" such as performance, scalability, reliability, management, and security, without the high cost.
Meanwhile, Fore also announced the availability of its latest product line of ATM products, including the Fore PowerHub 8000 multi-layer switch and the ForeThought 5.0 network software.
Fore's latest PowerHub 8000 multi-layer switch for Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, and FDDI (fiber distributed data interface) networks to ATM, is said to provide users scalability of up to 3.2 gigabits-per-second (Gbps) and throughput of over 1 million packets of data per second.
As a layer 3 ATM switch, the PowerHub 8000 will reportedly allow network managers to increase backbone bandwidth, eliminate single bottlenecks or points of failure, and boost network performance.
For the network software, Fore announced that its ForeThought 5.0, a sophisticated suite of networking applications, will allow large corporate networks the most advanced interoperability in multi-vendor networks.
The software will support both local area network (LAN) and wide area network (WAN) environments, as well as latest network technologies such as distributed LAN emulation and multi-peer group network implementation in an ATM backbone.
(19980317/Press Contact: Benjamin Tay, Fore Systems, tel +65-392-3673, fax +65-392-5371, e-mail btay@fore.com)
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