Atrica Announces 100GigE Optical Ethernet Metro Core Switch -- Breaks Performance and Cost Barriers.

Business Editors

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 15, 2001

New A-8800 Offers Unprecedented Performance, Integrates

Optical and Ethernet Switching in Same Box to Scale

Optical Ethernet Networks 10-Fold

Continuing its leadership in the $15 billion Metro networking market, Atrica Inc. today expanded its Optical Ethernet System with a new metro core switch, the A-8800, which provides the industry's first 100Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) capability.

The A-8800 Optical Ethernet Metro Core Switch features both 10GigE and 100GigE, as well as full optical switching in a single, carrier-class platform.

By integrating Ethernet and optical switching, Atrica's A-8800 enables significant expansion of network capacity, eliminates the fixed requirement for ring-based topologies and reduces the build-out and operational costs of Optical Ethernet networks by up to 50%.

"Building on our mission of delivering carrier-class solutions at enterprise Ethernet prices, the A-8800 demonstrates our market vision as well as our technical development capabilities," said Avinoam Rubinstain, founder and CEO of Atrica.

Added Rubinstain, "By delivering 100GigE trunking, the A-8800 lets carriers scale their networks to meet the growing demand of 1GigE and 10GigE access links. Further, by integrating Ethernet and optical switching, we are dramatically cutting the costs of building and operating high-capacity Metro networks and enabling carriers to easily migrate from their existing SONET-based networks."

Speed and Capacity for the Next Generation of Metro Networks

The A-8800 integrates the highest capacity Ethernet and wavelength switching capabilities. It features terabit capacity Ethernet switching, 100GigE interfaces and a fully standard MPLS-based architecture that is capable of engineering tens of thousands of concurrent flows.

The wavelength matrix multiplexes up to 33 wavelengths of 10GigE on a single fiber, adding and dropping any wavelength at any node. The A-8800 also offers full protection with sub-second failure recovery as well as redundant DC power and full redundancy of all common equipment in its 34-slot chassis.

First With Speeds That Meet the Requirements of

Next-Generation Metro Networks

The rapid acceptance of 1GigE and 10GigE by enterprise users will place a heavy burden on Metro carriers to support 10GigE and 100GigE trunks in the core of the network.

"Atrica is demonstrating early technical innovation by introducing 100GigE products, showing its understanding of carrier requirements to meet increased bandwidth demands at lower costs," commented Michael Howard, Principal Analyst at Infonetics Research. "Atrica's integration of Ethernet and optical switching lowers carrier CAPEX (capital expenses) and OPEX (operational expenses) costs of deployment, and allows carriers to eliminate the need for separate Ethernet and optical networks."

SONET Migration Support

The ability to coexist alongside and provide a migration path for legacy SONET technology is key to the value of the A-8800. The A-8800 interfaces to the full range of SONET speeds, enabling SONET and Optical Ethernet traffic to co-exist on the same fiber.

This capability is ideal for carriers who have an installed base of TDM and SONET services to support or who wish to build a network that offers traditional TDM as well as Optical Ethernet services.

Supporting Key Metro Network Topologies 

Although traffic in Metro networks generally concentrates users to national gateways in a logical star pattern, fiber is typically laid out in rings. Traditional technologies have forced carriers to "process" traffic at every node throughout the ring, forcing an optical/electrical/optical conversion.

By contrast, Atrica's integration of optical switching and Ethernet technologies allows carriers to solve this problem by building physical star networks over ring fiber topologies. Furthermore, there is no longer a need to process traffic at each node or hub location, significantly reducing network delay, lowering equipment costs and simplifying network management.

"Atrica has consistently demonstrated that it is in sync with what service providers need," said Frederic Veyssiere, Managing Director with Innovacom, the venture capital subsidiary of France Telecom. "The A-8800's key features including its support for 100GigE and its cost-cutting integration of optical and Ethernet switching show how well Atrica has anticipated the requirements of Metro carriers."

The Atrica Optical Ethernet System

The A-8800 is the second member of the A-8000 family of Optical Ethernet Metro Core switches and an important part of Atrica's complete Optical Ethernet System. The complete system, which includes the Atrica Ethernet Service and Network Management System (ESNM), the A-2100 and A-5100 Optical Ethernet Edge Switches and the A-8100 Optical Ethernet Metro Core Switch, offers a compelling alternative to SONET as the foundation of the next-generation Metro network. Designed from the ground up to provide the carrier-class features of existing SONET technology with the low-price points of enterprise Ethernet, Atrica's Optical Ethernet System offers:

-- Support for 10, 40 and 100GigE;

-- Pro-active Service Level Agreement (SLA) management and monitoring for
thousands of customers;

-- System-wide recovery after failure of less than 50msecs;

-- A comprehensive set of TDM interfaces with Ethernet Circuit Emulation
Services (E-CES) providing guaranteed, prioritized transmission through the
Metro network;

-- A full-featured, integrated service management system, that easily
integrates into carrier OSS systems via a CORBA interface and provisions new
connectivity in seconds;

-- A full range of optical networking capabilities.

Pricing and Availability

The A-8800 Optical Ethernet Core Switch will be available in the fourth quarter of 2001 and will be demonstrated for the first time at Supercomm 2001 in Atlanta, Georgia, June 4-7, in Atrica's booth 440D. Pricing for the A-8800 starts at $20,000, U.S. list.

About Atrica

Atrica's mission is to deliver the most cost-effective, high-performance Optical Ethernet platforms to forward-thinking service providers who are building next-generation Metro networks today.

Atrica is a privately held company based in Santa Clara, Calif., with R&D facilities in Israel and business development and sales offices in Paris, France. The company received seed funding from 3Com Corp., first-round financing from prominent Silicon Valley venture funds Accel Partners and Benchmark Capital, and second-round financing from five leading global service providers.

For more information, visit Atrica on the Web at www.atrica.com.