Compatible Systems' VPN Captures Top Industry Award; Compatible VPN Solutions Honored for Second Consecutive Year.

BOULDER, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 23, 1999--

In recognition of their industry-leading products and technology, Compatible Systems Corporation today announced it has received a Product of the Year award from Internet Telephony magazine for its IntraPort Carrier-8.

The Product of the Year award is designed to honor innovative products and services that have contributed to the growth of the Internet telephony industry.

"As the VPN market matures, we are very pleased that Compatible has received such notable industry recognition for the second year in a row," said Matt McConnell, president and CEO of Compatible Systems. "We will continue to develop our strong technology foundation and deliver on our mission of offering both carrier and enterprise VPN solutions that meet the needs of our customers -- who demand the very best in functional, interoperable and scalable VPN products."

Internet Telephony magazine is a leading publication that covers the revolutionary new telecommunications market as voice, video, fax and data converge. The magazine selected companies for its Product of the Year awards based on advanced technological breakthroughs in the networking market that have helped redefine this fast growing industry. For more information about the list of awards, please visit the Internet Telephony Web site: http://www.internettelephonymag.com.

Compatible Systems' IntraPort Carrier-8 integrates dial-up remote access via IPSec VPN connections with Layer-2 services such as Frame Relay, ATM and DSL, allowing NSPs to incorporate roving users into packet-switched WAN offerings.

The IntraPort Carrier

The IntraPort Carrier is available in either a two or eight-slot chassis. Each slot houses an I/O card supporting up to 5,000 VPN sessions for fully loaded capacities of 10,000 and 40,000 connections, respectively. Each StrongARM(TM)-based I/0 card features a Triple DES encryption co-processor. LAN/WAN interface options include 10/100 Mbps Ethernet, DS3 and High-Speed Synchronous Interface (HSSI).

In standard operation, IPSec packets from a remote client location travel the public Internet and undergo a normal VPN sequence -- decryption, authentication, source address translation -- at the IntraPort Carrier. VPN groups are assigned at the IntraPort Carrier location. The IntraPort Carrier supports RADIUS authentication and accounting. Once the VPN connection has been terminated, packets are switched onto the private intranet.

The process is reversed for sending traffic back to the client over the public Internet.

The IntraPort Carrier supports all the features of the IntraPort family of VPN Access Servers (see below).

IntraPort Family of VPN Access Servers

The Compatible Systems IntraPort family of VPN Access Servers is a full line of VPN hardware solutions designed for organizations of all sizes. All of the IntraPort products provide secure Internet-based remote access and LAN-to-LAN connectivity, with full routing capabilities, for mid-size and large corporate networks.

The line supports from 64 to 40,000 remote client connections and 16 to 4048 LAN-to-LAN connections, and includes PCI-based Triple DES co-processor cards that dramatically improve throughput in high-level encryption applications.

About Compatible Systems

Compatible Systems Corporation is the industry leader in hardware-based VPN solutions for site-to-site and remote client connection networking. The company has more than 10 years of network product design experience and has worked with VPN technologies since 1991. Compatible Systems has strong customer, reseller and ISP relationships and has installed equipment in thousands of networks worldwide.

For more information, contact Compatible Systems Corporation at P.O. Box 17220, Boulder, Colo., 80308 or by phone at 800/356-0283 or 303/444-9532. The company's World Wide Web server is http://www.compatible.com.

Compatible Systems VPN Access Servers have been selected for use by Adobe Systems, Amazon.com, Apple Computers, ENTEX Information Systems, Jet Propulsion Laboratories, Lawrence Livermore Laboratories, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the Mayo Foundation, Pacific Stock Exchange, PSINet, the U.S. Department of Health and the Yankee Group.

Among the industry veterans who have begun development of VPN products are Ascend Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq:ASND), Cisco Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:CSCO), Lucent Technologies (NYSE:LU), Nortel Networks (NYSE:NTL) and Intel Corporation (Shiva Corporation) (NYSE:INTC). Compatible Systems equipment is interoperable with systems from Apple Computer (Nasdaq:AAPL), Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT) and Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq:SUNW).