Ascend Selects Essential Communications to Distribute the GRF Product Family in Gigabit Networking Markets; Essential to Provide Ascend Equipment to High-Performance Supercomputing and Entertainment Market.ALAMEDA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 22, 1997--Ascend Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ NASDAQ in full National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations U.S. market for over-the-counter securities. Established in 1971 by the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD), NASDAQ is an automated quotation system that reports on :ASND ASND A Streetcar Named Desire (play) ) today announced an agreement with Essential Communications, an Albuquerque, N.M.-based developer of gigabit networking technologies and products, that will expand Ascend's presence in the high-end computing and workstation marketplace. Essential will integrate its High Performance Parallel Interface (HIPPI (HIgh Performance Parallel Interface) An ANSI-standard high-speed communications channel that uses a 32-bit or 64-bit cable and transmits at 100 or 200 Mbytes/sec. ) switches and network interface cards (NICs) with Ascend's GRF GRF Graph (File Name Extension) GRF General Revenue Fund (Canada) GRF General Revenue Fund (United States) GRF Growth hormone-Releasing Factor GRF Global Relief Foundation 400 and GRF 1600 high-performance IP switches and provide them to its customers. Essential was the first company to introduce a full line of HIPPI and Serial HIPPI products. Its high-end customers use HIPPI technology to create fast, highly dependable and interoperable production LANs. Movie studios, as an example, use HIPPI networking products to achieve the high-bandwidth connections between clients and servers to create increasingly astounding a·stound tr.v. a·stound·ed, a·stound·ing, a·stounds To astonish and bewilder. See Synonyms at surprise. [From Middle English astoned, past participle of astonen, special effects. Essential's switches and NICs allow companies to build LANs that support high-end servers, workstations and storage devices to enable the highest possible performance. With the addition of Ascend's GRF, the only IP switch that supports HIPPI media, customers can internetwork other media including HSSI (High-Speed Serial Interface) A serial interface with transmission rates up to 52 Mbps. It is often used to connect one or more LAN routers and network devices to a T3 line, which provides 44.736 Mbps. , ATM, FDDI (Fiber Distributed Data Interface) Often pronounced "fiddy," it was a LAN and MAN access method that had its heyday in the mid-1990s. FDDI was an ANSI standard token passing network that transmitted 100 Mbps over optical fiber up to 10 kilometers. , and SONET. The GRF 400 is part of Ascend's family of IP switches that combine switching, route management, and high-speed distributed IP forwarding to achieve unprecedented performance. The GRF 400 is the only IP switch that supports multiple 1 GB pathways between HIPPI and other media cards. Conventional routing solutions use a bus-based architecture, where the entire bandwidth is less than a single HIPPI connection. The GRF is designed to dedicate 1Gbps switch bandwidth to each IP forwarding media card, and offers a choice of up to four high-speed media cards including ATM and SONET. "Essential is positioning itself to be at the forefront of all gigabit networking technologies," said Michael McGowan, Essential's president and CTO (Chief Technical Officer) The executive responsible for the technical direction of an organization. See CIO and salary survey. . "The GRF's high-performance multiple network media capabilities combined with our leadership in HIPPI networks gives us significant advantages in gigabit networking. The GRF will help to integrate HIPPI into customers' existing IP networks. Customers will now experience more value from their high-end SMP (Symmetric MultiProcessing) A multiprocessing architecture in which multiple CPUs, residing in one cabinet, share the same memory. SMP systems provide scalability. As business increases, additional CPUs can be added to absorb the increased transaction volume. servers through the enterprise using both LAN (Local Area Network) A communications network that serves users within a confined geographical area. The "clients" are the user's workstations typically running Windows, although Mac and Linux clients are also used. and WAN access." "Not only does the sale augment Ascend's position as a leading-edge developer of high-speed solutions," Mark Garver, vice president and general manager of Ascend's High Performance Networking Division, said, "but it enables Ascend to collaborate in the development of networking solutions for a high-end market." The partnership is an opportunity for Essential and Ascend to work together on issues relative to HIPPI standards and to cooperate in efforts to improve HIPPI networking expansion. About Ascend Communications Ascend Communications, Inc. develops, manufactures, and sells wide area networking solutions for telecommunications carriers, Internet service providers Internet service provider (ISP) Company that provides Internet connections and services to individuals and organizations. For a monthly fee, ISPs provide computer users with a connection to their site (see data transmission), as well as a log-in name and password. , and corporate customers worldwide. For more information about Ascend and its products, please visit the Ascend web site at http://www.ascend.com, or e-mail info@ascend.com . About Essential Communications Essential Communications, founded in 1992, is a leading provider of affordable, end-to-end gigabit networking solutions used in workgroups, backbones, cluster computing, storage management and visual computing. Its Gigabit Ethernet and HIPPI networking product families include network interface cards, switches and routers. Essential's vertical markets cover broadcast and post production, design engineering, scientific research, medical imaging, data mining, data warehousing and data backup. For more information about the company and its products, contact Essential at 1-800-278-7897, info@esscom.com, or visit http://www.esscom.com . -0- Ascend is headquartered at One Ascend Plaza, 1701 Harbor Bay Parkway, Alameda, CA 94502. Phone: 800/ASCEND4; Fax: 510/814-2300. CONTACT: Gallagher PR Jeannette Bitz, 510/747-2058 jbitz@ascend.com |
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