Foundry Networks Sets Industry Leadership With End-to-End Next Generation Switching Architecture and Products.

Business Editors, High-Tech Writers

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

Foundry Unveils High End Products in its Internet Backbone Router,

Layer 2/3 LAN Switching and Layer 4-7 Internet

Traffic Management Product Lines

Foundry Networks(TM), a leader in high performance end-to-end switching and routing solutions, announced today new high end products in each of its major product lines: the NetIron(TM) 1500 Internet backbone router, the BigIron(TM) 15000 Layer 2/3 switch and switching router, and the ServerIron(TM)400 and ServerIron800 Layer 4-7 Internet Traffic Management switches. This new suite of chassis-based products deliver the industry's highest non-blocking routing performance and port density in each of their product categories. With these new products, Foundry offers complete end-to-end, high performance, scalable, broadband network solutions for desktop, server farm, Local Area Network (LAN), Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) and Wide Area Network (WAN) and Internet backbone connectivity.

As part of this announcement, Foundry introduces its first interface modules based on the Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP) Multi Source Agreement (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. This product enables customers to deploy high density Gigabit Ethernet solutions (up to 120 Gigabit Ethernet ports) with the flexibility of the GBIC technology.

In addition, Foundry also announced a 40% price reduction on Packet Over SONET/SDH interfaces for the entire router product family, including 2 port OC-48c/STM-16, 2 and 4 port OC-12c/STM-4, and 2and 4 port OC3c/STM-1 modules.

With these announcements, Foundry establishes the NetIron Internet backbone router and BigIron Layer 2/3 switch products as the price/performance and feature leaders in the industry.

NetIron 1500 Internet Backbone Router

As an expansion to the recently announced NetIron400(TM) and NetIron800(TM) Internet router products, the groundbreaking NetIron 1500 15-slot modular chassis scales to deliver a massive, industry leading 480 Gigabits per second (Gbps) of total switching capacity and up to 172 Million packets per second (Mpps) forwarding performance within a single system - giving service providers the ability to outpace the ever-increasing Internet traffic demands by scaling their IP backbone infrastructure to new levels.

Based on Foundry's customer proven IronCore(TM) ASIC designs, the NetIron 1500 is a high density carrier class Internet backbone router which offers customers the ability to deploy a full spectrum of broadband wide area network interfaces ranging from OC-192c/STM-64, OC-48c/STM-16, OC-12c/STM-4, OC-3c/STM-1, ATM to DS3. It also supports LAN interfaces ranging from 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet to 10 Gigabit Ethernet. The NetIron 1500 offers full software and hardware redundancy through a distributed switching architecture with redundant management and routing processor modules, SONET Automatic Protection Switching, N+1 load-sharing and hot swappable AC and DC power supply options, hot swappable interface modules as well as support for the IETF Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) and the Foundry Standby Routing Protocol (FSRP) - providing full router redundancy.

The NetIron1500 supports IronWare(TM), Foundry's Internet strength routing and control software, making it seamlessly compatible with the NetIron400 and NetIron800 Internet routers, as well as the complete line of Foundry products.

ServerIron400 and ServerIron800 Integrated Layer 2 - 7

Chassis-Based Switches

The new ServerIron400 and ServerIron800 Layer 2 - 7 switches integrate the industry's highest performing Foundry switching/routing chassis platforms with the rich Layer 4 - 7 features of the Foundry Internet IronWare software suite. The ServerIron400 and ServerIron800 combine customer proven IronCore ASIC technology along with symmetric multi-processing design to deliver wire-speed switching and routing performance along with ultra-high Layer 4-7 application level switching performance that include Server Load Balancing, Global Server Load Balancing, Firewall Load Balancing, Transparent Cache Switching, and URL, Cookie, and SSL-Session ID switching, all delivered in a fault-tolerant modular chassis. These products are capable of sustaining forwarding throughputs up to 56 Gigabits per second (Gbps) while supporting up to 16,000,000 concurrent web sessions. Such Internet strength performance and scalability are the technology underpinnings of tomorrow's highly trafficked, highly available and content rich e-commerce.

The ServerIron400 and ServerIron800 integrated Layer 2-7 switches, with their rich set of Layer 2 switching, Layer 3 routing and Layer 4-7 application level switching features, enable e-commerce and Internet Service Providers to build sophisticated, high capacity, highly available and function-rich web presence with lower equipment cost, reduced management overhead, reduced network latency, streamlined design and ultimately higher reliability.

"With the introduction of the ServerIron400 and ServerIron800, Foundry extends their Internet Traffic Management capabilities across a flexible and extensible product line, providing customers with a wide range of choices for price/performance and port density. The ServerIron400 and ServerIron800 will allow users to support much larger environments, retaining all of the integrated Layer 2-7 features already supported by Foundry," said Mark Hoover, Analyst for Acuitive, Inc.

BigIron 15000 Layer 2/3 LAN Backbone Switch

The BigIron 15000 - a 15-slot Layer2/3 LAN backbone switch scales routing performance to more than 178 Million packets per second (Mpps) in a single chassis which measures 29.75 inches high by 19 inches wide by 15.25 inches deep - giving it half the size and twice the performance and Gigabit density of its nearest competitor. The BigIron 15000 delivers an immense 480 Gbps of total switching capacity and supports up to 120 Gigabit and 352 10/100Mbps Ethernet ports, making it the highest Gigabit density switch in the industry today. Each switch module houses an eight Gbps full duplex backplane connection, for a total of 240 Gbps of non-blocking inter-module connectivity.

Highly resilient for mission critical networks, the BigIron 15000 includes hot swappable modules and redundant power supplies, redundant management and routing modules, SONET Automatic Protection Switching and the support of industry standard Virtual Redundant Router Protocol (VRRP).

The BigIron 15000 extends the performance and port density of the BigIron 4000 and BigIron 8000 yet maintains complete module and feature compatibility. It supports dynamic VLAN capabilities, wire-speed Access Control Lists (ACLs), and QoS prioritization. Like the BigIron 4000 and BigIron 8000 switches, the BigIron 15000 is 10 Gigabit Ethernet ready.

"With our next generation, high performance and high density network products, Foundry will maintain its leadership position in providing high speed, carrier class broadband solutions to Internet Service Providers and enterprises," said Bobby Johnson, President and CEO of Foundry Networks. "The functionality and scalability of our IronCore ASIC design and system architecture have enabled us to deliver consistently best of breed products in the Internet router, Layer 2/3 LAN switching and Internet Traffic Management system markets. With the introduction of these new products, our customers can look to Foundry for the most complete end-to-end high performance networking solutions," continued Johnson.

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 a statement by Bobby Johnson regarding Foundry's expectation to maintain its leadership position in providing broadband solutions to ISPs and enterprises, 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, NetIron, ServerIron, IronWare and IronCore are trademarks of Foundry Networks, Inc. All other trademarks are the sole property of their respective holders.