Convergence Big At NetWorld+Interop. [Networker product announcements]
By Shawn Willett
San Francisco
9:21 PM EST Fri., May 01, 1998
crn.com
..............
Vendors at the NetWorld%2BInterop show next week will show off
networking gear and applications that prove that converged voice
and data networks can be a reality. But there will be a lot of meat
and potatoes internetworking products debuting at the show as well.
Bay Networks Inc. will give convergence a boost when the Santa
Clara, Calif. based vendor releases its first voice over IP product,
the Voice Gateway 4000. The switch will be priced at about $1,500
per port.
3Com Corp., Santa Clara, will show off its Pathbuilder WAN
Switches, the CoreBuilder 9000 and 3500, which are enabled for
converged applications, according to 3Com. 3Com Chief Executive
Eric Benhamou will preach his vision of convergence at his keynote
and outline 3Com's commitment to voice enabling all future
internetworking products.
Sources close to Cisco Systems Inc., San Jose, Calif., said the
networking giant will unveil on Wednesday the company's first
product implementation of the DEN (Directory Enabled Network)
specification.
The spec was first introduced by Cisco and Microsoft Corp. last
September and then supported by a slew of other networking
companies. The draft, used to establish distributed directories for
policy based network management, has been submitted to the
Desktop Management Task Force (DMTF) standards body.
Cisco will unveil support for the spec within its IOS software next
week, sources said. The policy management features of DEN make
it a key requirement for converged telephone and data networks.
The applications for converged networks also are coming fast and
furious. Vienna Systems Inc. will debut an IP Courier, a thin client
version of its telephony application, as well as IP Shuttle, a
peripheral that allows convergence of voice and data over a cable
line.
NBX Corp., Andover, Mass., will demonstrate its NBX 100
Communications System, a voice over Ethernet telephony server
that can replace small PBXes.
But analysts caution that VARs and users should not get carried
away by the hype around converged applications. "I think that
companies may want to think about planning some pilot in a
contained environment, but not a widespread revision of the current
system," said Eric Hindin, director of research at the Yankee Group
Inc., Boston. "We are only about 1 percent there in terms of
infrastructure."
In the here and now, less expensive products for smaller
organizations seems to be the mantra of vendors, which see big
growth in small businesses.
For example, Bay Networks is debuting its Extranet 1000 switch at
the show. The switch, priced at $7,000, includes virtual private
network software (VPN) so VARs can easily construct an
intercompany extranet for smaller businesses or divisions. It is
designed for 50 concurrent users or about 300 total VPN users.
"Our previous product, the Extranet 4000, started at $50,000, so it
wasn't a very channel enabled product," said Kairen Taylor, product
marketing manager for Bay Networks.
The Extranet 1000 includes VPN directory software that makes
changing or deleting users easier. "Network managers can make
one change in the directory, and those changes are pushed out to
the remote extranet switches," said Taylor.
Bay Networks also will reveal it is adding the Accelar 1050 to its line
of routing switches and plans to add Gigabit speed connections to
its BCN line of routers and its System 5000. The company also will
add a multiprotocol routing engine to its Centillion line of switches,
plus some network management functions.
3Com also is jumping on the smaller, faster and cheaper
bandwagon. Its new family of SuperStack II switches and hubs
provides 10/100 Mbit per second switching for about $99 per user,
said company officials. A Layer 3 version of the SuperStack II family
with IP routing is priced at $400 per port, and a Gigabit Ethernet
wire speed version is $1,875 per port for the Layer 3 products.
The networks division of Samsung Telecommunications America,
Dallas, is debuting two new 10/100 Mbps switches, the SS6212 and
the SS6224, which are part of the SmartEther 10/100 Mbps family of
products. But Samsung is not just aiming low. It also is adding a high
density T1 Frame Relay module to its STARacer switch, a high
capacity, multiservice ATM switch.
Finally, Network Associates Inc., Santa Clara, will be unveiling the
latest version of its diagnostic suite, Sniffer Pro 1.5, at the show.
Sniffer Pro will be making the jump from DOS to Windows, and the
company said the product eventually will be useful as a
troubleshooting tool across all network topologies, including high
speed environments.
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