Newbridge Networks Announces Versatile IP Multicasting as
Part of Switched Routing Portfolio
NEWS RELEASE TRANSMITTED BY CANADIAN CORPORATE NEWS
FOR: NEWBRIDGE NETWORKS CORPORATIONTSE SYMBOL: NNC
NYSE SYMBOL: NN
OCTOBER 19, 1998
HERNDON, VIRGINIA--IP Multicast Capability Sets Standard for
Scalability, Manageability and Performance
Newbridge Networks (NYSE: NN; TSE: NNC) today announced versatile
Internet Protocol (IP) multicasting for its Switched Routing
portfolio of products, demonstrating Newbridge Networks'
commitment to video, voice and data convergence as part of its
Enterprise and Carrier Switched Routing solution. With up to 65
million packets per second of aggregate multicast forwarding into
a Switched Routing network, Newbridge(r) equipment provides the
highest performance, greatest scalability and most easily managed
multicast implementation available for today's networks.
The IP multicasting capability will be available in the entire
Newbridge Switched Routing portfolio, including Carrier Switched
Routing (CSR) and Enterprise Switched Routing (ESR). CSR, a
solution-based on the Carrier Scale Internetworking (CSI) network
architecture, enables established service providers, Internet
service providers (ISPs) and competitive local exchange carriers
(CLECs) to build an IP virtual private network (VPN)
infrastructure capable of delivering value-added business
services. ESR delivers an application-proof internetworking
infrastructure that enables an entire enterprise to function as a
single network, dramatically improving scalability, performance
and manageability. It also enables the enterprise network manager
to operate as an Enterprise Service Provider (ESP). The enhanced
IP multicasting capability will enable established, new generation
and enterprise service providers to offer scalable, reliable and
high performance IP multicasting applications to their customers
and end users.
Newbridge Switched Routing is uniquely suited to delivering high
performance IP-multicasting because of its center-weighted,
connection-oriented internetworking architecture. The center
weighted management ensures efficient administration and
enforcement of IP multicasting policies, while the
connection-oriented asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switching
fabric is optimal as an efficient multicasting infrastructure.
IP multicasting distributes a common stream of information to
multiple network users. For example, a file transfer to a
distributed group of recipients, or the distribution of a video
channel to a large group of viewers on a network is much more
efficient than traditional IP methods.
"IP multicast has typically not been available on traditional
enterprise networks because of low performance and difficulty in
managing the service," said Jim Arsenault, Vice President of IP
and Internetworking Products Group, Newbridge Networks. "Our IP
multicast implementation not only offers significantly higher
performance, but it is also much easier to manage than traditional
IP multicast implementations. This enhances our position in key
vertical markets such as education, government and healthcare that
want to leverage IP multicast capability."
Newbridge Switched Routing networks simulate a traditional router
on a network-wide basis by using a distributed backplane composed
of one or many industry-standard ATM switches, and ATM attached
edge devices, supporting a variety of local area network (LAN) and
wide area network (WAN) interfaces, functioning as router
interface cards. The complete system supports the creation of a
highly scalable virtual router that is fully modular down to the
actual backplane. By reducing the number of routing points in a
network, performance, scalability and manageability of IP
multicast are substantially improved. Increased Performance
Newbridge Networks also announced today the availability of the
Route Services Forwarding Engine, an optional upgrade to the
Enterprise Switched Routing Route Server. With the Route Services
Forwarding Engine, IP multicast can scale to 125 Mbit/s of source
multicast traffic - roughly 100,000 packets per second - an order
of magnitude greater than traditional routers. As a result, a
Newbridge Switched Routing network can support an aggregate of 65
million packets per second of multicast traffic, ideal for
enterprise IP-multicasting needs.
The increase in multicast forwarding performance is made possible
through the innovative use of the ATM fabric, which underpins the
Switched Routing technology deployed by the Newbridge(r)
Enterprise Switched Routing solution. Each multicast tree is
performed in hardware by the ATM fabric, which ensures that the
ATM fabric performs packet replication.
The Newbridge Switched Routing solution supports Distance Vector
Multicast Routing Protocol (DVMRP) Version 3 and Internet Group
Management Protocol (IGMP) Version 1 and Version 2 on a per port
basis. In addition, bandwidth is optimized through the
implementation of per port (IGMP) snooping. Multicast packets are
delivered only to the individual ports that request them, instead
of to all ports in the broadcast domain or subnet. This prevents
multicast "junk mail" from flooding those parts of the network
that are not involved in a particular multicast session.
Pricing and Availability
Newbridge Networks versatile IP multicast capability will be
available the first quarter of calendar year 1999. The current
U.S. list price for the Route Server-2 is $29,990. The product is
part of the Newbridge Switched Routing internetworking product
portfolio. Existing customers will be offered an upgrade plan to
enable easy migration to the new IP multicast functionality.
Newbridge Networks designs, manufactures, markets and services
networking solutions to organisations in more than 100 countries.
The Company leverages its relationship with a growing family of
Affiliate companies and strategic alliances with Siemens and 3Com
Corporation to deliver seamless, end-to-end solutions. Newbridge
customers include the world's 300 largest telecommunications
service providers and more than 10,000 corporations, government
organisations and other institutions. Founded in 1986, the
Company employs more than 6,000 people on five continents. News
and information are available at www.newbridge.com.
Newbridge, logo are registered trademarks of N |
