CrossComm's ClearPath strategy helps W&D Securities improve business and network operations; Second-Generation ATM Technology lets operations escape traditional LAN boundaries.

Securities, a brokerage firm and member of the New York Stock Exchange, found a way to greatly improve both their business and network operations with the help of CrossComm Corp.'s ClearPath strategy.

Because CrossComm's products enabled them to effectively escape the traditional boundaries of local area networks, W&D Securities decided to make a major change in the nature of its computer backup process - a change that saved them staff, time and money.

While W&D was moving their business operations across the Hudson River from Manhattan to less-expensive Jersey City, they originally wanted to put their primary data processing facilities in the new location, with an emergency backup system in their Manhattan offices. But, Patrick Craven, Senior Vice President of Operations, had been evaluating the potential of ATM technology and CrossComm's ATM products -- and felt the time was right to develop a different strategy to meet the requirements of his firm and their clients.

Parallel live sites, linked by ATM, give mission-critical availability

"Instead of setting up our primary site and a backup, we implemented two parallel, live-sites -- each of which would be capable of supporting our entire operations if one site went down," said Craven. He went on to explain several advantages to the two-site approach. "If we are running live at both locations, and one goes out, traffic is automatically re-routed to the other site. Also, if the link between sites goes down, both sites can continue to run -- with no impact on customer service."

The live two-site approach could not have been implemented without ATM. "Both sites could not have been live, because you couldn't communicate across the river at high speed," said Craven. "You would have perhaps three to five percent of the speed you can have now." This would have required W&D to do backup operations at night, which would mean much more staff time-- and much more money. With ATM, all that has gone away. We also wanted to install an ATM link between the two sites because of our bandwidth requirements, and we needed to connect my LANs to this ATM backbone. We looked at the marketplace and found a number of ATM offerings. We did not see a lot that put ATM traffic across an ATM backplane. And none offered us the benefits, service and network management support that CrossComm's second-generation technology did."

Removing the barriers to more effective operations

To support the new two-site configuration, W&D installed multiple CrossComm XLT ATM switching and routing modules, plus a pair of XLT-F LAN-to-ATM Edge Routers with forward-facing fiber ports, one each in Manhattan and Jersey City. The CrossComm modules, because of the high speed fiber link to ATM, essentially knocked down the traditional LAN boundaries. Before, LANs had to be either in the same building or across the street. This enabled W&D to expand the traditional distance without having to go out to a telco provider or satellite, and to increase the throughput without increasing the costs. The network installation was completed in June of 1995, and handles all of W&D's trading operations.

Making the transition to ATM with CrossComm

CrossComm has been supplying network equipment to W&D for six years. During their relationship, W&D had used nearly the entire CrossComm product line. They swapped their ILAN routers for the XL80 chassis with the ATM backplane when CrossComm introduced it two years ago. "We have been moving from a router-based network to a switched environment. And my orientation was to go with ATM eventually," explained Craven, "and the XL80 ATM backbone would give me the path to make that move. It seemed many other vendors were stuck on FDDI, but CrossComm had an ATM growth path in place. Our next step will be to install CrossComm's recently introduced XLX ATM Workgroup Switches."

"We have a very high comfort level with CrossComm," continued Craven. "In six years, I can recall only one board failure out of everything we have installed. And they have provided a high standard of service. When it came time to install the ATM link, CrossComm and Teleport (who supplied the ATM link) had the entire thing installed -- both sites -- in three days. They were really committed to our business."

About CrossComm and ClearPath

CrossComm's ClearPath is the industry's first fully-integrated communications and networking strategy to provide a smooth transition from hub-and-router-based networks to next-generation LAN and ATM switching environments. It offers a complete, high-performance modular solution that can grow as bandwidth demands increase, and integrates LAN switching, ATM technology, routing and remote office connectivity within a single, fault-tolerant platform.

CrossComm Corp. (NASDAQ:XCOM), founded in 1987, designs, develops, manufactures and sells high-performance networking solutions. Worldwide headquarters are located at 450 Donald Lynch Boulevard, Marlborough, Mass. 01752. -0- All CrossComm product names herein are trademarked by CrossComm Corp. All other product names are trademarked by their respective companies.

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