Foundry Leads Layer 2/3 Market With New IronWare Features; New Capabilities to be Demonstrated at ISPCON Fall 99 Booth 747.

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 26, 1999--

Foundry Networks(TM), Inc. (Nasdaq:FDRY) today announced a comprehensive suite of new IronWare(TM) Layer 2/3 features for its award-winning stackable and chassis-based switches. The new features include Layer 2 and Layer 3 access control lists, IronSpan(TM) for improved Spanning Tree Protocol performance, Foundry's IronClad Quality of Service, and BGP4 and OSPF routing enhancements. Additionally, with this release, Foundry's Gigabit over Copper is now generally available on all product lines.

The new IronWare features enable Foundry customers to maximize their equipment investment by improving network performance and supporting new applications. "Ongoing product enhancements such as these, coupled with our ability to support Packet over SONET (POS), are the cornerstone of our mission to provide enterprises and ISPs with an end-to-end switching solution that provides leading price/performance and capabilities," said Bobby Johnson, President and CEO of Foundry Networks, Inc.

Wire-speed Layer 2 and Layer 3 Access Control Lists for Network Control and Security

Unlike other companies that offer limited Access Control List (ACL) support with poor performance, Foundry offers full Layer 2 and Layer 3 Access Control Lists at wire-speed. Foundry ACLs enable users to control network traffic and limit network access without impacting performance. ACLs filter traffic with priority or custom queuing, dynamic access control, encryption and Telnet access. With Foundry ACLs, network managers can easily change traffic auditing features to simplify switch configurations.

IronSpan for Enhanced Spanning Tree Protocol Support

Foundry's new IronSpan features eliminate Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) problems introduced with the widespread deployment of switching. Through the use of IronSpan, network managers can reduce the convergence impact of spanning tree and better manage and control both switch ports and trunk groups.

IronSpan improves STP performance in three configurations. Fast Port Span enables a switch port connected to end stations to become active and ready to forward data within only 4 seconds. In addition, Fast Port Span enhances overall network performance by reducing the number of STP topology change notifications on the network.

Fast Uplink enhances STP running across trunk groups by optimizing the convergence time of the ports that comprise a trunk group. For example, a network manager can use the Fast Uplink feature on a Foundry FastIron(TM) II wiring closet switch to decrease the convergence time between uplink ports and another switch to 4 seconds.

Single-instance STP enables network managers to configure a Foundry switch to run a single spanning tree, even if multiple port-based VLANs are configured on a device. The single-instance STP feature is especially useful for connecting a Foundry switch to third-party devices that run a single spanning tree in accordance with the IEEE 802.1p specification.

IronClad QoS for Simplified Network Control and Bandwidth Allocation

Foundry's IronClad Quality of Service (QoS) offers new capabilities that enable network managers to easily prioritize traffic without implementing a pre-standard, proprietary end-to-end policy management solution. With IronClad QoS, network managers can configure QoS profiles that describe bandwidth and prioritization settings, and QoS groups that describe the attributes of incoming traffic that are affected by the QoS profiles. IronClad QoS supports the ability to discern type of service (ToS) bits, re-map queues, settings and methodology. A network administrator can now choose between a strict queuing method and a weighted queuing method; modify the minimum guaranteed percentage of bandwidth for each queue; apply a QoS profile to 802.1p tagged VLAN packets; and display the percentage of an uplink's bandwidth of a given set of port. This last capability is especially useful in environments where collocated customers on different, isolated ports share common uplink ports.

Multi-Protocol Enhancements for High Performance Routing 

Enterprises that support multiple protocols, as well as ISPs deploying BGP4 for high performance Internet connectivity, will benefit from the routing enhancements included in the latest IronWare release.

BGP4

New BGP4 capabilities include load sharing, which enables a Foundry Layer 3 switch to balance traffic to a route across multiple equal-cost paths of the same type. Load sharing is performed in round-robin fashion and is based on the destination IP address. Additionally, BGP4 confederations are now supported. A confederation is a BGP4 Autonomous System (AS) that has been subdivided into multiple, smaller ASs. Subdividing an AS into smaller ASs simplifies network administration and reduces the complexity of the Interior Border Gateway Protocol (IBGP) mesh among the BGP routers in the AS.

With this release, Foundry switches now support 1,000,000 BGP4 routes and allow network administrators to specify redistribution of routes to directly connected devices. Redistribution can be individually enabled for each of the following types of routes: BGP4 into OSPF; OSPF into BGP4; RIP into BGP or OSPF; static IP into BGP4 or OSPF; and to directly attached devices into BGP4 or OSPF. All are helpful in Internet routing POS deployment.

OSPF

In previous IronWare releases, network administrators could configure normal and stub OSPF areas. OSPF routers within a normal area can send and receive External Link State Advertisements (LSAs). OSPF routers within a stub area cannot send or receive External LSAs and must use a default route to the area's Area Border Router (ABR) or Autonomous System Boundary Router (ASBR) to send traffic out of the area.

In the current IronWare release, network administrators can configure a third type of OSPF area, Not So Stubby Area (NSSA). The NSSA feature enables users to configure OSPF areas that provide the benefits of stub areas, but that also are capable of translating external route information. An ISP or enterprise that connects to a central site using OSPF to a remote site that is using a different protocol, such as RIP or EIGRP, will be able to simplify the administration of multiple topologies with Not So Stubby Area (NSSA). This off-loads the WAN link by cutting the number of routes in ASBRs. This also simplifies network administration by allowing users to manage one protocol versus multiple protocols between the local router and the remote router.

Pricing and Availability

The new IronWare features are generally available now as a free upgrade for Foundry TechNet support customers.

About Foundry Networks

Foundry Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: FDRY) is a leading provider of high performance Gigabit Ethernet switches for enterprises and Internet Service Providers. Foundry customers include the world's top 5 ISPs and Fortune 1000 enterprises worldwide. For more information about the company and its products, call 1.888.TURBO.LAN or visit our web site at http://www.foundrynetworks.com.

Editor's Note: Product photography available on request. Foundry Networks, FastIron, IronSpan, TechNet and IronWare are trademarks of Foundry Networks Inc.