About FORE Systems.. What could it mean for us longs?
"More than 40 percent of Internet traffic worldwide is carried on FORE ATM, so its performance in supporting the types of services that we offer is well-documented." as said by the President of TMNet.
ATMnet currently offers ATM transport at speeds of up to 155 Mbps over OC-3c lines, with plans to upgrade services to 622 Mbps (OC-12c) and 2.5 Gbps (OC-48c) to accommodate regional demand across the U.S. and the rest of the world.
To know more about FORE Systems, here is a detailed write-up on one of its customer TMnet!
---------- TMnet
Building a Faster, Better WorldWide Web FORE ATM Improves Internet/Intranet Performance
"FORE ATM is playing a key part in transforming the Internet into a high-speed, multimedia communications infrastructure."
ATMnet is an Internet service provider on a mission: Develop the world's largest, fastest, commercially-available Internet backbone with the highest level of quality and service.
Using asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) solutions from FORE Systems, ATMnet is accomplishing this mission. Based in San Diego, CA, ATMnet maintains the world's fastest publicly available Internet backbone.
With it, ATMnet provides Internet transport services to other Internet service providers(ISPs) and companies maintaining their own Internet and Intranet sites. These customers support more than 10,000 separate Internet domains.
Using ATM networking solutions from FORE Systems, ATMnet is developing the world's largest, fastest, commercially-available Internet backbone.
Why ATM Technology?
Acting on the adage, "To succeed in business, find a need and fill it," ATMnet's founders formed the company to address the growing need for improved Internet access and performance.
"ATMnet was founded on the belief that the demand for reliable, high-speed Internet service requires a new model, one based on ATM," said Jim Browning, president of ATMnet. "ATM technology allows us to provide integrated communications services, carrying voice, video and data traffic over the same infrastructure."
An infrastructure based on ATM can support private Intranets as well as publicly accessible Internet traffic on the World Wide Web. That is important because companies are increasingly using Intranets for posting and exchanging information internally.
And ATM's high-performance, multi-service capabilities make it ideal for carrying organizational data traffic such as e-mails and file transfers, video traffic for distance learning and videoconferencing, and corporate voice telephony.
"ATM is the only technology that allows us to consolidate all communications traffic on a single connection, eliminating the need for redundant capacity on individual circuits," explained Browning.
"ATM brings a tremendous performance boost to networks, and there's no limit to its scale. Because of ATM, we can help companies create private Intranets as small as several work groups, or confederations of major corporate divisions, and even broad multinational networks accessible to all the employees of a given company. And ATM service delivers better cost-per-megabit price/performance than any other technology."
ATMnet selected FORE's ForeRunner ASX-1000 and ASX-200BX ATM switches to support its regional ATMnet access centers.
Located in key geographic locations, the centers provide direct ATM backbone connectivity for customers' high-traffic servers. These direct connections eliminate local line costs, increase flexibility, improve network management, and ensure scalability. All client traffic is transmitted across a single ATM circuit to the ATMnet node nearest each customer location.
Additionally, ATMnet exchanges traffic with other Internet providers via routing at the edge of the ATM cloud. Each node in the backbone has a carrier-level ATM switch at its core. The backbone, therefore, is made up of an aggregation of switched, dedicated high-speed ATM circuits. ATMnet clients order ATM circuits from the company to connect their premises to the backbone, enabling them to take advantage of ATM connectivity between circuit endpoints.
ATMnet currently offers ATM transport at speeds of up to 155 Mbps over OC-3c lines, with plans to upgrade services to 622 Mbps (OC-12c) and 2.5 Gbps (OC-48c) to accommodate regional demand across the U.S. and the rest of the world.
Why FORE?
"FORE ATM gives us the advantage we need."
"FORE ATM is playing a key part in transforming the Internet into a high-speed, multimedia communications infrastructure for electronic commerce," said Browning.
"More than 40 percent of Internet traffic worldwide is carried on FORE ATM, so its performance in supporting the types of services that we offer is well-documented."
Browning explained that the ability of FORE products to interoperate with other networking equipment helps ATMnet to obtain a competitive advantage.
"FORE provides the best LAN emulation support. With that support, ATMnet can offer connectivity to legacy LANs with minimal financial impact on customers' systems," Browning stated. "By using FORE ATM, ATMnet can deliver the scalability, performance, reliability, quality-of-service and cost-competitiveness that our customers require."
ATMnet chief scientist Mike Trest noted that FORE ATM products easily handle the high volume of traffic that passes on the backbone every day, providing direct and unrestricted access to the Internet, as well as reliability for mission-critical applications.
"FORE ATM provides a complete solution," stated Trest. "It allows us to serve our clients and provide integrated communications services-voice, video and data traffic-over the same infrastructure. FORE ATM gives us the advantage we need." |