Foundry Unveils Industry's Most Compact, Powerful, and Aggressively-Priced Router For Leading Enterprise and Service Provider Customers.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SAN JOSE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 12, 2003

New NetIron 4802 Router Packs Super Fast Route Processing, Larger Routing Tables and IPv6 Routing features in Compact Form Factor, Paves

The Way For Next Generation IPv6 Networks

Foundry Networks(R), Inc. (NASDAQ:FDRY), a leading provider of high-performance enterprise and service provider switching, routing and Web traffic management solutions, today announced a next generation, powerful Internet-class router that creates and delivers a full range of routing services including Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) services.

This new stackable platform with 48 10/100 and 2 mini-GBIC Gigabit Ethernet ports, the NetIron 4802(R) router, leverages Foundry's continued investment in network infrastructure and industry-leading JetCore(TM) ASICs for its global base of service provider and enterprise customers. With a powerful 500 Mhz PowerPC RISC processor, 512 MB SDRAM, and 4 MB Ternary Content Addressable Memory, the NetIron 4802 router provides super-fast route processing, millions of BGP routes, and wire-speed extended Access Control Lists (ACLs). Packaged with complete IPv6 routing features, the NetIron 4802 router helps enterprise and service provider networks to deploy IPv6 networks to develop and test new generation of IPv6 applications, devices and services.

"We are pleased that Foundry Networks continues to delivery important network functionality in a timely fashion with the availability of IPv6," said Associate Professor Osamu Nakamura, faculty member of Environmental Information at Keio University and a board member of WIDE Project. "Our current network requires higher performance IPv6 for secure and reliable addressing with the vast growing number of mobile IP users on 2.5G and 3G networks. Foundry Networks understands our need for timely delivery of mission critical service provider network technology for our global network," added Nakamura.

The continued growth of IP address usage and Internet adoption is moving service provider customers to add the next generation of IP throughout their networks. Numerous network devices ranging from mobile laptops, IP phones and digital security cameras are becoming network enabled. These devices place an increasing load on service provider networks IP addressing space and security. For example, enterprises can leverage the new NetIron 4802 router for layer 3 protocol Virtual LAN (VLAN) services. IPv6 facilitates a wider range of IP addressing space with added security options for service providers to help them sell value-added service products to their customer bases.

IPv6 is a set of specifications from the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) designed as an evolutionary set of improvements to the current IP version 4. Foundry Networks customers can leverage network hosts and intermediate nodes with either IPv4 or IPv6 using the NetIron 4802 router. Most corporate users and service providers can independently update their IPv6 network without impacting the performance of their IPv4 network. The addition of the "always-on" traffic monitoring sFlow (RFC 3176) technology is available using Foundry's JetCore ASIC in the NetIron 4802 router and helps users gain a system-wide performance window of both IPv4 and IPv6 application traffic throughout their network. The feature helps enterprises pinpoint performance-impacting areas of their networks. IronWare(R) network management software augments sFlow's extensive traffic monitoring capabilities for all Foundry products, including Layer 2/3 switches, Metro Routers, and Web switches to enable complete visibility of network traffic flows.

Building the Best Router for Today and Tomorrow

The new NetIron 4802 router offers 48 10/100 Ethernet ports and 2 mini-GBIC slots that support SX, LX, and LHA optics that can reach up to 70 Kilometers. The router can support millions of IP routes through 4 megabytes of ternary content addressable memory (TCAM) and 512 megabytes of SDRAM. The result is wire-speed, ultra-low latency performance of up to 34 gigabits per second (Gbps) switching capacity. To achieve the highest amount of fault tolerance, the NetIron 4802 router offers redundant, hot swappable AC, DC or a mix of both for power supplies.

"The most obvious improvement in IPv6 over IPv4 is that IP addresses are lengthened from 32 bits to 128 bits, facilitating advanced voice and data services," said Todd Hanson, Principal Analyst for Public Network Infrastructure at Gartner. To be successful, vendors must now deliver world class switching and routing solutions for the IP applications of tomorrow. Today's customers demands investment protection from infrastructure equipment that lays the groundwork for new, engaging and profitable business-process applications," added Mr. Hanson.

Pricing and Availability

The NetIron 4802 router will be available in April with a US list price of $14,995 USD. The 1.5-RU platform offers a robust and scaleable routing implementation including BGP4, OSPF and IS-IS. Layer 3 capabilities of the NetIron 4802 router include complete Multicast Support, PIM Sparse/Dense, DVMRP, MBGP, MSDP, and IGMP. The use of Foundry Networks JetCore ASIC allows 4,096 line wire-speed, rule-based ACLs.

About Foundry Networks

Foundry Networks, Inc. is a leading provider of high-performance enterprise and service provider switching, routing and Web traffic management solutions including Layer 2/3 LAN switches, Layer 3 Backbone switches, Layer 4 - 7 Web switches and Metro Routers. Foundry's 5,500 customers include the world's premier ISPs, Metro service providers, and enterprises including e-commerce sites, universities, entertainment, health and wellness, government, financial, and manufacturing companies. Some of these customers include: AOL, EarthLink, China Telecom, MSN, Verio, Cable & Wireless, Yahoo!, Incyte Genomics, Deutsche Bank, The University of Washington, University of Miami, Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (INRIA) of France, The British Library, U.S. Army, Air Force and Navy, NASA and the National Space Development Agency of Japan. For more information about the company and its products, call 1.888.TURBOLAN or visit www.foundrynetworks.com.

Foundry Networks, FastIron, IronWare, JetCore, NetIron and the 'Iron' family of marks, are trademarks or registered trademarks of Foundry Networks, Inc. in United States and other countries. All others are trademarks of their respective owners.

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, and is subject to the safe harbor created by that section. These forward-looking statements include statements about product release and availability. The forward-looking statements in this press release are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including the Company's ability to manage its growth (including the ability to hire sufficient technical personnel), the risk of new product introductions and customer acceptance of new products. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in our forward-looking statements. Investors should review the risk factors described in more detail in our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q available free of charge from Foundry at www.foundrynetworks.com or from the SEC at www.sec.gov. Foundry assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements contained in this press release.