A little FORE PR:
FORE Systems Announces Multi-Gigabit Application Aware Routing Switches; ESX-4800 & ESX-2400 Provide Industry-leading Performance
October 20, 1998 02:00 PM
ATLANTA, Oct. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- NetWorld+Interop Booth #5537 -- FORE Systems, Inc. FORE , a leading global supplier of multiservice networking solutions, today introduced a new family of multi-Gigabit Application Aware(TM) routing switches, the ESX(TM)-4800 and ESX-2400. These new routing switches provide not only industry-leading performance, but also the world's first Application Aware switching delivering, application predictability and wire-speed firewalling.
When configured with optional, asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) uplinks, the ESX switches unlock the true power of a multiservice ATM core that is surrounded by a frame edge by mapping knowledge of application flows into the native services provided by ATM. In the end, the ESX-4800 and ESX-2400 extend FORE's resilient Intelligent Infrastructure(TM), delivering a new level of flexibility so that the network infrastructure may adapt to the ever-changing demands of the networked business.
These products confirm FORE's position as a leading network supplier providing complete solutions for the mission-critical needs of today's and tomorrow's businesses. The ESX switches provide unparalleled ethernet performance, whether they are at the edge of a large campus ATM backbone, in the core of medium-sized networks, in Internet Service Provider Point-of- Presence Local Area Networks or in front of Web host server farms, delivering wire-speed firewalling.
"With these new products, FORE Systems dramatically expands its addressable market space," said Ron McKenzie, vice president of strategic marketing at FORE Systems. "In addition to providing high performance solutions for large and very large networks, these advanced ethernet-based switches will give us a distinct advantage in new business opportunities with medium- and smaller-sized organizations."
FORE's channel partners look forward to providing customers with the new high-performance networking solutions.
"NCR is pleased to announce the addition of FORE Systems' high-performance Gigabit Ethernet solution to our world-class networking portfolio," commented Scott Schafer, vice president of networking sales for NCR. "Additionally, the ATM uplinks also make these products very attractive to larger enterprise customers."
ESX-4800 and ESX-2400 Provide Superior IP Performance
With up to 48 Gigabit Ethernet ports, or 384 10/100 Ethernet ports, the ESX-4800 delivers up to 38 million packets per second (Mpps) forwarding at Layer-2, Layer-3 and Layer-4. The ESX-2400 offers exactly half the capacity and density of the ESX-4800, with up to 24 ports of Gigabit Ethernet, 192 ports of 10/100 Ethernet and up to 19 Mpps forwarding.
"These ESX switches provide our customers with unprecedented ethernet scalability and performance," said Neil Viljoen, vice president of product marketing at FORE Systems. "At the same time, the ESX's Application Aware switching and the Integrated Network Services Switching Architecture set FORE apart as a vendor with incredibly fast and intelligent Layer 3 routing switches."
Application Awareness Differentiates ESX Switches From Other L3/L4 Devices
Unlike traditional routers and switches, the ESX-4800 and ESX-2400 switches provide Application Aware switching to classify application flows and enforce a variety of policies, such as security or class of service, at wire speed on any port. The ASICs on these ESX switches are unique in their ability to support stateful application flow classification -- flows with dynamic TCP or UDP port assignments. Examples of stateful applications include those based on H.323, DCOM, CORBA, Sun RPC, and FTP. This is a distinct advantage over traditional routers with filtering, which can only classify static TCP or UDP port assignments.
The management and control of application traffic is supported by an Integrated Network Services Switching architecture, providing superior flexibility and investment protection. This architecture employs Windows NT Server as an embedded, multi-service operating system with support for application agent or service agent plug-ins that uniquely integrate the network infrastructure with applications and services, essentially binding the infrastructure, applications and services together.
The first such agent is the Firewall Switching Agent, providing wire-speed TCP/IP firewalling, which was awarded the overall Grand Prize at NetWorld+Interop Las Vegas in May of this year. Additional agents are planned to support applications such as enterprise resource planning (ERP), directory enabled network services, naming services, videoconferencing and IP telephony.
"Organizations using distributed computing and collaborative applications require more intelligence within the network for better manageability and cost savings," said Kevin Kean, group product manager of Windows NT Server Communications at Microsoft Corp. "FORE's novel approach of combining Windows NT networking services and multi-gigabit switching ASICs is an excellent way to address the requirements of these new network-powered applications."
Application Awareness Unleashes the Power of a Multiservice Core
The Application Aware switching capability also will enable the switches to automatically map application flows from ethernet into the appropriate ATM services, unlocking the true power of a multiservice ATM core. By the end of 1QCY1999, the ESX-2400 will support 2 to 8 ports of OC-12c, while the ESX-4800 will support 2 to 16 ports of OC12c. The ports will support LANE and MPOA clients, along with load balanced, failover support for connectivity to an ATM backbone.
Pricing and Availability
Global list pricing for the base configuration of the ESX-2400 starts at $583 per 10/100 TX port. Global list pricing for the base configuration of the ESX-4800 starts at $604 per 10/100 TX port. Both products will begin shipping in the fourth quarter of CY1998. ATM uplinks will be integrated into both the ESX-2400 and the ESX-4800 in the first quarter of CY1999.
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