2Wire Introduces Broadband Web Site Supported by BROCADE SAN Solutions for Scalable Delivery of Streaming Entertainment.

MILPITAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 28, 1999--

2Wire, Inc., a leading developer of Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) residential gateway products that integrate DSL and home networking, announced today "2Wire Theater," a prototype for broadband entertainment into the home. 2Wire Theater delivers a variety of high quality streaming video and audio, including music videos, movie trailers, classic Movietone Newsreels, and CD-quality music.

"2Wire wanted to create a scalable and robust system architecture for delivery of streaming media content over the Internet," said Brad Kayton, vice president of marketing at 2Wire, Inc. "With Internet service applications, it is very difficult to predict the load on a site prior to taking the site live. We needed flexibility in our streaming rates, so we required a solution that provides maximum flexibility in storage."

2Wire Theatre Backed by Reliable, Scalable BROCADE Storage Area Network

Using BROCADE SilkWorm fabric switches as the connectivity platform for their storage environment, 2WIRE created a scalable, highly available system architecture to support streaming media content over the Internet. 2Wire implemented a Storage Area Network (SAN) infrastructure to easily scale the storage and the number of server CPUs without downtime for the site. The heart of the system architecture is a Fibre Channel SAN that connects a set of video server machines and Fibre Channel storage. The core element of the SAN is a BROCADE SilkWorm(R) Fibre Channel fabric switch providing 32 Gigabits of non-blocking switching capacity to the attached hosts and storage. The content on the servers is video programming encoded for streaming at rates ranging from 200-350 kbit/sec. The content is delivered on the Internet and viewed with Real Networks RealPlayer G2 media player.

Flexibility for Rapid Growth

The BROCADE SAN solution enabled 2WIRE to overcome the scalability issues of predicting media content volume and type. The scalable BROCADE fabric enables the company to dynamically scale storage capacity as needed to accommodate varying numbers of subscribers and varying types, amounts, and transmission rates of media content.

"2Wire is at the leading edge of delivering broadband content to the home. A BROCADE-based storage area network provides a scalable, reliable environment to support 2Wire's high-traffic, high volume web environment. The scalable SAN enables 2Wire to add storage and servers dynamically, as needed, to match the unpredictable demand of traffic and content, while providing the highest level of reliability and service to their subscribers," said Peter Tarrant, BROCADE vice president of marketing and business development.

Brad Kayton adds, "As a start-up company, we needed a solution that could scale with our growth. The flexibility of BROCADE's SAN was the perfect solution, given the challenge of unpredictable demand. Our web site traffic has doubled in the past month and we expect it to quadruple next year. I know that we'll be able to add whatever we need without starting over or experiencing down time as we add more content and streaming capacity."

Other Areas on 2Wire.com

www.2Wire.com is a unique web site that provides valuable information to consumers about how to research, obtain, and enjoy DSL service in the home. 2Wire provides the most comprehensive, national multi-provider "DSL Lookup Service", free to people who visit www.2Wire.com. This free service allows visitors to type in their phone number and address to determine if DSL service is available to them, which providers offer it, and at what cost. It has links directly to the service providers' sites so the search for service is quick and easy. Also, the "DSL Resource Center" provides tutorials, third party articles, answers to frequently asked questions, and related material on broadband technology and DSL in particular. "DSL Forum" is an area where people can ask the experts for advice on DSL connectivity and share their broadband experiences with others.

About 2Wire

2Wire designs, manufactures, and markets products that enable services for data, telephony, and entertainment delivery via ADSL and home networking technologies. By combining ADSL and home networking into single stand-alone devices, 2Wire is delivering a new class of broadband customer premise equipment becoming known as residential gateways. 2Wire is also actively involved in the creation of back-end services for next-generation ISPs and vertically integrated ADSL providers, as well as the design and manufacture of Internet appliances that take advantage of the wide area network and newly enabled home network. 2Wire can be reached via telephone at 408-428-9500, fax at 408-429-9590 and the Internet at http://www.2wire.com.

Note: 2Wire and the 2Wire logo are trademarks of 2Wire, Inc. (c) 1999 2Wire, Inc.

Real G2 with Flash(TM) is a trademark of Macromedia and RealNetworks, Inc.

BROCADE, SilkWorm, SilkWorm Express, Fabric Integrator, Fabric OS, and FABRIC 2000 are trademarks or registered trademarks of Brocade Communications Systems Incorporated, in the United States and/or in other countries. All other brands, products, or service names are or may be trademarks or service marks of, and are used to identify, products or services of their respective owners.