Naval Surface Warfare Center boosts ATM performance with OmniSwitch.

CALABASAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 30, 1999--Xylan Corporation (Nasdaq:XYLN) today announced the Naval Surface Warfare Center's Ship Systems Engineering Station in Philadelphia has selected Xylan's OmniSwitch to improve the performance of its ATM campus network, as well as pave the way to multimedia services.

The new fully switched, fiber optic network is more flexible, more reliable, and easier to manage compared to the previous shared network based on coaxial cabling. The Xylan switches also put the Ship Systems Engineering Station -- the Navy's principal center for Machinery systems and the principal Test and Evaluation center for all hull, mechanical and electrical systems and equipment -- in compliance with the Navy's Information Technology for the 21st Century (IT-21) initiative, instituted to provide Navy ships and bases with a common, state-of-the-art networking environment.

"Advanced network features -- such as the ability to support virtual LANs and multimedia traffic -- may have been possible on the previous shared infrastructure, but we did not have the number of ports to really control them," said Michael Jacobi, network administrator at the Ship Systems Engineering Station's network management section. "Now each individual node on the network has an individual port to an edge switch in the wiring closet. This lets us segment the network as we need to, giving us a lot more control over the network than we ever had before."

The Ship Systems Engineering Station is the primary research and development center for mechanical and electrical systems on Navy ships. The center operates a four-building, 2,500-node network that delivers switched 10 Mbps Ethernet to approximately 1,200 end users' desktops, as well as 100 Mbps Ethernet to servers and selected workstations. A core of OmniSwitches, interconnected with multimode fiber carrying ATM at OC-3 (155 Mbps), feeds traffic to additional OmniSwitches located in wiring closets throughout the campus.

By using the OmniSwitch to increase the port density of switches in wiring closets, the Ship Systems Engineering Station has significantly increased network performance compared to the previous ATM infrastructure running on coaxial cabling with shared Ethernet connections carrying traffic out to desktops.

"Compared to the previously shared environment, it's now much easier to isolate faults without taking down everybody else in the facility," Jacobi said. "With our original coax set-up, failed devices required us to take down an entire segment. Now with switched 10BaseT to the desktop we can administratively disable any one workstation's port. That gives us a lot more granular support over the network and its management."

Demilitarized Zone 

The Xylan equipment has also let the Ship Systems Engineering Station's network managers set up what they call a "demilitarized zone" on the network, segmenting traffic generated by applications not available to all military personnel on the base. An example is the Contractor Integrated Technical Information Service (CITIS), a client/server application that provides Navy personnel and outside contractors with logistical, cost, and engineering data for new submarines that are being designed at the center. Only a handful of employees are authorized to view CITIS data, so the network management section segments CITIS traffic to its own VLAN, separating it from the rest of the network.

Later this year, Ship Systems Engineering Station may further segment its network, restricting all IPX packets and financial traffic, for example, to subnets of their own. Other future plans include using the OmniSwitch's QoS features to carry IP video and voice across the network.

IT-21 compliance

Installing Xylan equipment has also made the Ship Systems Engineering Station compliant with the Navy's IT-21 initiative. IT-21 is an automation project intended to establish a seamless computing environment for networking systems on both Navy ships and bases. Last year Xylan passed the comprehensive switching performance and interoperability tests necessary to be compliant with IT-21. (See "Xylan passes Navy ATM switch tests," October 26, 1998.)

"The Navy is moving toward what it calls the Common Operating Environment (COE) and we try as much as possible to put in place the same equipment and standards that are supported on ships," said Marlene Smith, network administrator at the NSWC. "One of the considerations in purchasing Xylan equipment was to give our engineers a similar environment to what is being deployed on the ships."

About Xylan

Xylan Corporation is one of the fastest growing internetworking companies in history. Its networks are used by many of the world's largest governments, corporations, and service providers. In the enterprise, Xylan's networks are so powerful that they allow a user to bypass an entire generation of network change. They combine ease of management, high performance, and easy integration with existing equipment and software. For service providers, Xylan builds equipment for high-speed multi-service VPNs. Xylan's solutions integrate broad connectivity options, advanced software for partitioning and security, and any-to-any switching. Xylan helps service providers build profitable networks.

Xylan's products combine LAN switching, ATM switching, layer-three switching, and wide area switching, and are distinguished by advanced architectures and chip designs. Xylan's Switched Network Services takes switching to the next step: a comprehensive set of services that offers integrated directory-enabled networking, IP address management, user authentication, IP firewalls, quality of service, and routing and switching of multicast data. More information about Xylan and its products is available at www.xylan.com.

This press release may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements may differ materially from actual future events or results. Readers are referred to the documents filed by Xylan with the SEC, including the company's most recent report on Form 10-K and 10-Q, which identify important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements.

Xylan and OmniSwitch are trademarks of Xylan Corporation registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.