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Technology Stocks : Nortel Networks (NT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ian@SI who wrote (9081)	12/20/2000 10:07:21 PM
From: Kenneth E. Phillipps	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 14638

Monday, December 18, 2000, 3:40 PM ET. Nortel Upgrades Alteon Software By Christine Zimmerman Nortel Networks today will give the first details on how it plans to use technology it acquired in July with Alteon WebSystems. The company will update Alteon's switch software with new features aimed at load balancing VPN traffic across many gateways and allocating bandwidth according to Web-specific technologies such as cookies and URLs. The software, Web OS 8.3, is available for download at no cost to current users of ACEdirector and Alteon 180 (and higher end) switches. With Alteon's VPN load balancing services, VPN traffic can be distributed among up to 255 active VPN gateways for scalability in rapidly growing enterprises, said Thomas Cheng, Web OS product manager. If VPN gateways fail, traffic is redirected to another device using health-checking mechanisms. “As companies expand and open remote offices around the world, the need for security increases. So they build VPNs.” said Cheng. “But the question becomes [one of] scaling.” Another key feature of the new software is dynamic bandwidth allocation using Layer 7 parameters like HTTP cookies, headers and URLs. This feature lets IT managers give specific applications or transaction types guaranteed response times and assign classes of service so that bandwidth is allocated according to their priority within the enterprise, Cheng said. New switch-management features set to debut in January include Alteon Centralized Management System (CMS) and Java-based Alteon Element Management System (EMS). CMS automates the configuration and management of multiple Alteon Web switches. It offers a unified view of all Alteon switches wherever they're located. EMS provides a graphical interface to manage and configure Alteon Web switches. CMS and EMS are platform independent. They cost $15,000 and $500, respectively. Nortel could not supply the names of any customers beta testing the software. The announcements answer some questions about where switching based on the contents of data, which is referred to as content networking, will head now that the big players are involved-as Nortel acquired Alteon after Cisco swallowed ArrowPoint. Both Alteon and ArrowPoint have assumed lower profiles since being acquired, said Hooman Beheshti, chief technology officer at competing switch-maker Radware. Nortel and Cisco's involvement in the intelligent switch market nonetheless “validates the technology,” Beheshti said. A Nortel spokesman said the vendor in February will detail plans to integrate Alteon's functionality across Nortel product lines, from optical to wireless networking.