Foundry Networks Scales to New Heights With Next Generation BigIron 15000 Switching Router.

Business Editors, High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 17, 2000

Foundry Networks(TM), Inc. (NASDAQ:FDRY), announced today it is expanding the BigIron(TM) switching router product family to now include the BigIron 15000. The BigIron 15000 is a 15-slot Layer2/3 switching router that scales routing performance to 178 Million packets per second (Mpps) in a single chassis and measures 29.75 inches high by 19 inches wide by 15.25 inches deep - giving it half the size and twice the performance of the nearest competitor.

"With BigIron 15000, we continue to demonstrate that our IronCore(TM) ASIC designs and distributed switching architecture continue to push the performance envelope and lead the industry in price/performance, capabilities and scalability with a feature-rich high end switching router. Now, with the introduction of BigIron 15000, Foundry offers our customers a complete and comprehensive set of scalable Gigabit Ethernet products," said Bobby Johnson, President and CEO of Foundry Networks.

Carrier Class Reliability

The BigIron 15000 is a carrier class chassis-based switching router that delivers an immense 480 Gigabits per second (Gbps) of total switching capacity and 178 Mpps of routing throughput. The BigIron 15000 can scale up to 120 Gigabit Ethernet ports making it the highest Gigabit density switching router in the industry. Each BigIron module houses an eight Gbps full duplex backplane connection, for a massive 240 Gbps of non-blocking inter-module switching capacity.

Based on Foundry's IronCore(TM) ASIC designs shipping for the past 21 months, the BigIron 15000 offers customers the ability to deploy high density 10/100/1000 Mbps, 10 Gigabit Ethernet and Packet Over SONET interfaces by simply adding the new interface modules into the chassis. All these technologies will be available on Foundry products without costly backplane upgrades or the disruption normally caused by swapping out or replacing switch fabric modules, supervisor modules or existing interface modules. The BigIron 15000 also continues Foundry's tradition of offering complete software and hardware redundancy and high-availability through a fully distributed switching architecture with redundant management modules, N+1 load-sharing and hot swappable AC and DC power supply options, hot swappable interface modules, SONET Automatic Protection Switching (APS), as well as support for the IETF Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) and the Foundry Standby Routing Protocol (FSRP) - providing for full router fault tolerance.

Rich Layer 2/3 Feature Set

The BigIron 15000 delivers unique product features including fully dynamic VLAN capabilities, wire-speed Access Control Lists (ACLs), and full support for QoS classification and prioritization. BigIron 15000, like its siblings the BigIron 4000 and BigIron 8000 modular chassis, are all 10 Gigabit Ethernet ready. The BigIron 15000 is a high performance, wire-speed switching router which supports a robust set of protocols including IP, IPX, Appletalk, RIPv1/2, OSPF, BGP4, IGMP, DVMRP, PIM Dense and Sparse Modes.

The other high value features supported by the BigIron 15000 include policy-based switching and routing, multi-module trunk groups, and an extensive set of network security and management features.

Upward Mobility

To guarantee investment protection and reduce cost of ownership, all BigIron modules are interchangeable among the BigIron 4000, BigIron 8000 and BigIron 15000. Users can upgrade their existing infrastructures by simply placing the BigIron 15000 in their racks and moving the modules from their existing BigIron 4000 or BigIron 8000 to the new chassis. No upgrading of switch fabric modules or interface modules is required.

"Six months ago, Lycos started standardizing on Foundry for Layer 2 and Layer 3 networking devices, for a couple of reasons. One reason was due to our expansive growth rate. We were looking for a way of consolidating all of our devices together into an architecture that would scale both on the LAN backbone and secondly, support our broadband requirements on the Internet side," said Subra Kumaraswamy, Network Architect for Lycos. "We are excited to learn about the high capacity and throughput aspects of the BigIron 15000. We are confident that the BigIron 15000 will deliver the same superior level of performance and reliability we have experienced with Foundry's other BigIron chassis-based products," continued Kumaraswamy.

Foundry Introduces GBIC-Based Interface Modules

In addition to the BigIron 15000, Foundry also announced today its first interface modules based on the Small Form-Factor Pluggable Multi Source Agreement (SFP MSA) Optical GBIC Transceiver. The Gigabit transceivers are fully compliant with the Gigabit Ethernet standard and occupy less than half the board space of the existing GBIC products, which allows Foundry to offer 120 ports of Gigabit Ethernet connectivity in one chassis with the flexibility offered by the GBIC technology.

Pricing and Availability

The BigIron 15000 is available in September. The basic list price for the chassis is $17,495 and it ships with an AC power supply. It supports the choice of either AC or DC power supply options. All other BigIron modules, which include 1000Base-T, 1000Base-SX, 1000Base-LX, 1000Base-LongHaul, 10/100Base-TX, 100Base-FX, OC-3c/STM-1, and OC-12c/STM-4 Packet Over SONET/SDH modules are available for immediate delivery. OC-48c/STM-16 POS module will be available in May and 2 and 4 port OC-3c/STM-1 ATM modules will be available in the second half of 2000.

The 8 port mini-GBIC based module is available in July, at a list price of $16,995. Pricing for the Small Form-Factor Pluggable, Multi Source Agreement (SFP MSA) transceiver optics starts at $495 and is initially available for 1000Base-SX and 1000Base-LX, also shipping in July. Long Haul optics availability will be announced soon.

About Foundry Networks

Foundry Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ:FDRY) is a leader in high performance end-to-end switching and routing solutions including Internet routers, Layer 2/3 switches and Internet Traffic Management switches. Foundry products are installed in the world's largest ISPs including AOL (NYSE:AOL), EarthLink (NASDAQ:ELNK), AT&T WorldNet, MSN, and Cable & Wireless (NYSE:CWP). Foundry products are also installed in large enterprises, entertainment, pharmaceutical and manufacturing companies as well as e-commerce sites, universities and government organizations. Some of these customers include: The University of Washington, LucasFilm, Yahoo! (NASDAQ:YHOO), LTV Steel (NYSE:LTV), Incyte Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:INCY), U.S. Army, Air Force and Navy, NASA and NIH. For more information about the company and its products, call 1.888.TURBO.LAN or visit our web site at www.foundrynetworks.com.

This press release contains forward-looking information within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and is subject to the safe harbor created by this section. These forward-looking statements include anticipated support and feature additions to Foundry products and expected availability and prices of future products. The results expected by these statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including continued acceptance of Foundry's current products in general, Foundry's ability to introduce new and superior products and predict future industry standards, the quality of new products offered by Foundry's competitors in the intensely competitive networking market, and Foundry's ability to attract and retain skilled employees in an intensively competitive hiring market. Actual results may differ materially due to these and other factors. The matters discussed in this press release also involve risks and uncertainties described from time to time in Foundry's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In particular, see the Risk Factors described in Foundry's final Prospectus dated September 27, 1999 for its initial public offering as well as its most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q and Annual Report on Form 10-K. Foundry assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking information contained in this press release.

Foundry Networks, BigIron, IronWare and IronCore are trademarks of Foundry Networks, Inc. All other trademarks are the sole property of their respective holders.