Digital partners with customers to implement industry-leading ATM networks.

MAYNARD, Mass. --(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Nov. 14, 1994 -- Digital Equipment Corporation today announced that it is delivering the highest-performance ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) network capabilities in the industry.

With the announcement of two new ATM products, the GIGAswitch/ATM system and the ATMworks 750 network interface adapter, leading-edge customers are giving high marks to Digital's ATM strategy and products.

"Today's announcement marks the next step in fulfilling our commitment to deliver high-speed ATM networking to customers," said Dr. Laurence Walker, vice president and general manager of Digital's Network Product Business Unit. "The performance that ATM offers will enable new and emerging high-speed networking applications. Digital's solution provides these customers with a graceful, cost-effective migration from shared and switched LANs to ATM."

Customers Benefit From Digital's ATM Products

As a result of its unique ATM Switch and Adapter Partners Program, Digital has already shipped ATM switches and adapters to over 30 customers in 13 countries. These customers have varying networking applications and requirements.

Some results include: Tampere University of Technology, Finland -- Digital's GIGAswitch/ATM is a central part of the university's campus network, connecting several workstations, servers, and other switches together with other cities in Finland and Europe. A typical application is computing 3D magnetic and electrical fields, generating large quantities of data for visualization. "The high-speed networks and multimedia applications, including distributed processing and visualization, are the core of the Finnish information superhighway," explains Mika Uusitalo, data communications manager for the university. "And we have them up and running. The best thing with Digital's switch is that it is very fast," adds Uusitalo. "We are seeing 128 Mb/s application throughput with UDP and 133 Mb/s with TCP between Alpha workstations [with ATMworks 750 adapters] and FTP file transfer rates of more than 90 Mb/s."

University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, Florida -- Researchers at the University process large amounts of satellite data and are using ATM to transmit video, voice, and data on one network. Peter Evans, research associate at the school's Remote Sensing Laboratory, remarked about Digital's ATM products, "There are two factors that set them apart: a good flow control mechanism and performance. From a performance point of view there's no question Digital's solution is better."

DeTeBerkom GmbH, Germany -- This subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom expects ATM to provide the technical infrastructure for new, more effective working styles that speed up the development cycles of products and services. ATM will eventually help to connect all the capitals of Europe.

"We are developing many multimedia applications, including video conferencing, multimedia collaboration, and multimedia mail," said Bernd Weise, a DeTeBerkom project manager. "For these applications, variable bandwidth up to the highest bandwidth is very important, and the ATMworks 750 adapter supplies the highest bandwidth I've seen." In addition to high bandwidth, telecommunications applications require reliable uninterrupted service, according to Weise. "Because of its architecture, Digital's GIGAswitch/ATM system offers key features for keeping traffic alive and uninterrupted: backup power supplies, hot swappable modules, and fast, automatic switching of backup lines," added Weise. "These features are not currently standard in private switches."

Elsag Bailey Process Automation, Cleveland, Ohio -- As a global supplier of control and instrumentation technologies for many industries, including paper and pharmaceuticals, Bailey is evaluating the use of ATM technology at the control level using the GIGAswitch/ATM switch and ATMworks 750 adapters. According to researcher Derek McKearney, a consulting engineer at Elsag Bailey, "The GIGAswitch/ATM system has the highest throughput of any of the switches I've seen--more than 100 Mb/s. Efficiency is important because those bits are money, so if we can't use the bandwidth, we're paying for something we can't use."

"Working in close partnership with our customers has enabled us to learn from and incorporate key user requirements into our ATM products," said William Maro, Digital's vice president of Network Product Marketing and Engineering. "Our ATM products offer customers unprecedented performance and network stability because of innovations like our flow control technology."

Industry-Leading ATM Products Announced Today: o The GIGAswitch/ATM System -- A robust, high-performance 10.4 Gb/s

ATM switch that is ideally suited for use in backbone local area networks and high-performance workgroups. The GIGAswitch/ATM system provides customers with network stability because it is the only switch in the industry that eliminates cell loss due to network congestion. The GIGAswitch/ATM system simplifies network management by providing automatic configuration and reconfiguration. o

The ATMworks 750 Network Interface Adapter -- The fastest 155

Mb/s ATM network interface adapter in the industry, providing high-performance TURBOchannel-to-ATM connectivity for Digital's DEC 3000 AXP systems. The ATMworks 750 adapter is the first in Digital's family of ATM adapters. The product enables customers to use these systems for client/server computing or multimedia network applications because of the guaranteed bandwidth and the low latency capabilities of ATM networks. Digital's ATMworks 750 maximizes network utilization and stability with FLOWmaster flow control.

The GIGAswitch/ATM System has an entry price of $25,740 and a price per 155 Mb/s (OC3) port of under $2,600 when fully configured. The ATMworks 750 is priced at $2,499. Both products can be ordered immediately for delivery within 90 days.

Digital, the leader in high-performance switched networking, continues to be a significant contributor to the development of many popular networking technologies including Ethernet, FDDI and ATM LANs, network switches, routers, bridges, network adapters, and terminal servers. Digital has networked more than 10 million users worldwide.

Digital Equipment Corporation is the world's leader in open client/server solutions from personal computing to integrated worldwide information systems. Digital's scalable Alpha platforms, storage, networking, software, and services, together with industry- focused solutions from business partners, help organizations compete and win in today's global marketplace.

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Note to Editors: Digital, the Digital logo, GIGAswitch, ATMworks, TURBOchannel and FLOWmaster are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

CONTACT: Susan Ursch

              Network Product Business Unit
              508/486-5198