FastIron Edge 'X-series' Switches Deliver Performance and Intelligence with
Industry Leading 10-Gigabit Ethernet Pricing at Less Than $3,300 Per Port
to Accelerate Adoption of 10-Gigabit Ethernet
SAN JOSE, Calif., March 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Foundry Networks(R),
Inc. (Nasdaq: FDRY) a performance and total solutions leader for end-to-end
switching and routing, today added new 10-Gigabit Ethernet (10-GbE) switch
models to its award-winning family of FastIron(R) Edge Layer 2/3 Ethernet
switches (FES). The new Foundry FES X-series switches extend the performance
of 10-Gigabit Ethernet to the network edge at a cost and ease of deployment
that will enable broad adoption of 10-Gigabit Ethernet in enterprise and
service provider networks. Consistent with the FES family of switches, the new
FES X-series delivers an optimized suite of Layer 2/Base Layer 3 switching,
full Layer 3 routing and sFlow traffic monitoring in a compact form-factor
with support for hot-swappable redundant power supplies. The introduction of
Foundry's FES X-series further extends the company's 10-GbE market leadership
and expands its broad 10-GbE product portfolio which includes the BigIron(R),
FastIron and NetIron(R) 10-GbE modular switches. Foundry will demonstrate its
new FES X-series products at the CeBIT tradeshow, which opens this week in
Hannover, Germany.
Starting at a base price of $5,495 (U.S. list) and expandable to include
up to two 10-GbE ports at $3,250 per port, Foundry's FES X-series switches
establish the industry's leading price-performance value for Gigabit and
10-Gigabit Ethernet networking. The FastIron Edge X-series switches are
available in two base configurations, the FES X424 and the FES X448. Hardware
feature highlights include:
-- 24 or 48 10/100/1000 Mbps RJ-45 copper (1000Base-T) ports
-- 4 1-GbE Fiber (1000Base-X) ports with small form-factor transceivers
(SFP)
-- Front-accessible data ports and status indicators
-- Hot swappable redundant, load-sharing AC power supplies
Hardware options:
-- 1-port or 2-port 10GBase-X modules with support for XFP small
form-factor hot-pluggable transceiver
-- SX, LX, CWDM and LHA 1-GbE optical transceivers
-- SR and LR 10-GbE XFP optical transceivers
Proven IronWare(TM) Layer 2/3 Switching Intelligence
Foundry's FastIron Edge X424 and X448 switches deliver an optimized set of
Layer 2 and Layer 3 services based on the company's time-tested, field-proven
IronWare networking software. The FES X-Series provides a rich set of
standards-based Layer 2 switching and Base Layer 3 routing features, including
GVRP, Subnet, VLAN Groups, Per-VLAN Spanning Tree and Single-Instance Spanning
Tree. In addition, the FES X-Series switches are upgradeable to full Layer 3
routing, making them the most versatile edge switches on the market today.
IronShield(TM) Security -- Complete Network Protection
Foundry's FES X424 and X448 switches are designed to deliver ironclad
network security for defense against increasingly frequent and sophisticated
security threats. Foundry IronShield security features, including extensive
Layer 2/3 ACL support, MAC Address Locking, MAC Filtering, AAA, Radius,
TACACS/TACACS+ and 802.1x Port-based Authentication, are designed to harden
networks against unwanted intrusions and security threats. With the rich
IronShield Security features, the X-series switches provide a compelling and
secure solution for switched Gigabit Ethernet applications. These features
will protect against denial of service (DoS) attacks. Secure switch operations
and network management is provided by support for authenticated operator
access, SNMPv3 and SSH.
Accelerating Demand for Gigabit Performance at the Network Edge
The new switches deliver wire-speed Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) aggregation and
10-GbE uplink connectivity. Built with four "combo" SFP/Copper Gigabit
Ethernet uplink ports as well as expansion slots for up to two 10-GbE uplink
ports, the X-Series switches provide a powerful, flexible and cost-effective
solution for delivering wire-speed GbE and 10-GbE performance across the
enterprise. The 1-GbE and 10-GbE uplinks can be aggregated to deliver
increased uplink bandwidth. Foundry's FES X-series switches also support jumbo
frame sizes over 9,200 bytes. Jumbo frames are used to improve application
throughput in cluster, storage and high-performance computing environments.
Resilient and High Availability
Foundry's X-Series switches provide resilient networking including support
for IEEE 802.1w Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol, IEEE 802.3ad dynamic link
aggregation and Foundry Network's Metro Ring Protocol (MRP). These protocols
support sub-second service protection in the event of a hardware or facility
outage. For added network resilience, the X-Series switches can be dual-homed
to redundant backbone switches and routers using Foundry Network's Virtual
Switch Redundancy Protocol (VSRP) or the IETF standard, Virtual Router
Redundancy Protocol (VRRP).
Wire-Speed Per-Flow Traffic Monitoring
Foundry's X-Series switches support sFlow data collection on every switch
port. sFlow is an IETF specification for monitoring per flow traffic
statistics. sFlow is supported on all Foundry Networks Layer 2/3 switches and
routers providing a powerful tool for network-wide traffic monitoring.
sFlow-based per flow statistics are used for a number of important
applications including service billing, network engineering, fault-monitoring,
trouble-shooting and network surveillance.
Flexible Solutions from Enterprise Edge to Service Provider Metro Backbone
By combining high-density Gigabit Ethernet distribution and aggregation
into a single switch, Foundry's X-series switches collapse distribution and
aggregation into a single edge solution, thereby reducing equipment and
operations costs. With support for 10/100/1000 Mpbs Ethernet speeds, the
X-Series is an ideal solution for migrating users to Gigabit Ethernet. This
architecture is also ideal for data centers in which high-performance
applications including cluster computing, server farms and storage networks
require cost-effective wire-speed Gigabit Ethernet/10Gigabit Ethernet
networking.
The X-Series switches also provide a powerful solution for delivering
Gigabit Ethernet services in metropolitan networking environments.
Metropolitan service providers, municipalities, universities and utilities can
take advantage of the hardened compact design and low cost to build out their
Gigabit Ethernet infrastructure to deliver true, wire-speed Gigabit Ethernet
services to their business users. The X-series feature a number of
self-healing capabilities that support sub-second service protection in event
of a network fault. In particular, Foundry Networks Metro Ring Protocol and
Virtual Switch Redundancy Protocol are optimized for Metro service access and
Metro backbone ring topologies and are supported on all Foundry edge and
backbone switches, providing a highly available end-to-end solution for metro
network deployments.
"The growing performance and speed requirements of servers with embedded
Gigabit over Copper connectivity and new converged applications will benefit
from 10-GbE's movement out of the data center to the edge of the network,"
said Zeus Kerravala, vice president of Network Infrastructure for the Yankee
Group. "Availability of 10 Gig Ethernet connectivity from the core to the edge
of the network will eliminate bottlenecks and allow organizations to carry
storage, voice, video and other business-critical application traffic on a
consistent high-speed network with simplified management."
"With this announcement, we are setting a new industry standard for 10GbE
price/performance, we are first to market with a low-cost 10GbE edge switch
family and first with hot-pluggable small form factor XFP optics," said
Bobby Johnson, president and CEO of Foundry Networks. "We have the industry's
most comprehensive and versatile 10GbE product suite. This announcement
signals our continued commitment to maintaining our leadership in this market
and our commitment to providing customers with affordable, intelligent and
complete 1-GbE and 10-GbE networking solutions."
Pricing and Availability
FastIron Edge X424
* U.S. List Price: $5,495
* Available April 2004
FastIron Edge X448
* U.S. List Price: $7,995
* Available June 2004
Optional 10-GbE XFP modules
* U.S. List Price: $ 4,495 for 1-port module and $6,495 for 2-port module
* Available April 2004
About Foundry Networks
Foundry Networks, Inc. is a leading provider of high-performance
enterprise and service provider switching, routing and Web traffic management
solutions including Layer 2/3 LAN switches, Layer 3 Backbone switches, Layer
4 - 7 Web switches and Metro Routers. Foundry's 6,500 customers include the
world's premier ISPs, Metro service providers, and enterprises including
e-commerce sites, universities, entertainment, health and wellness,
government, financial, and manufacturing companies. For more information about
the company and its products, call 1.888.TURBOLAN or visit
http://www.foundrynetworks.com.
NOTE: Foundry Networks, FastIron, BigIron and the "Iron" family of marks
are trademarks of Foundry Networks, Inc. All other trademarks are the sole
property of their respective holders.
Press Contacts:
North America Europe Asia/Pacific
Jill Shanks Tom Herbst Jenny Liu
Foundry Networks Kaizo Foundry Networks
+1-408-941-7190 +0207-580-8852 Hong Kong
jshanks@foundrynet.com tom.herbst@kaizo.net +852-2845-3818
jenny@foundrynet.com
Investor Contact:
Jason Golz
Financial Dynamics
+1-415-439-4532
jgolz@fd-us.com
SOURCE Foundry Networks, Inc.
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Related links:
http://www.foundrynetworks.com
CONTACT:
media, North America, Jill Shanks of Foundry
Networks, +1-408-941-7190, or jshanks@foundrynet.com; or Europe,
Tom Herbst of Kaizo, +0207-580-8852, or tom.herbst@kaizo.net, for
Foundry Networks; or Asia/Pacific, Jenny Liu of Foundry Networks
Hong Kong, +852-2845-3818; or investors, Jason Golz of Financial
Dynamics, +1-415-439-4532, or jgolz@fd-us.com, for Foundry
Networks
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