Plaintree Now Shipping FDDI and Router Acceleration.

NEWTON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 8, 1998--

WaveSwitch 9200 becomes the world's largest FDDI switch

Plaintree Systems today announced that it is shipping its FDDI and Router Accelerator Gigamodules for the company's WaveSwitch 9000 family of gigabit switches. With the FDDI Gigamodule(tm), the WaveSwitch 9200 is positioned as the world's largest FDDI switch because it is capable of delivering a full 100 Mbps to each of 64 switched FDDI ports, simultaneously. Administration-free Layer 3 switching with the Router Accelerator Gigamodule provides network managers with a powerful, cost-effective solution for offloading IP traffic from LAN backbone routers.

"We are committed to offering network managers a suite of switching products that take a bite out of the complexity and cost of networking, coincident with improving performance to a level that supports the convergence of voice, video, data and Internet traffic on the network," said Colin Beaumont, president and CEO of Plaintree Systems. "To achieve that, we are focused on products that optimize local area networks around 10/100/1000 Ethernet and the IP protocol, but which also ease the migration from highly segmented networks containing FDDI and multiple legacy protocols."

Router Accelerator Gigamodule

The Router Accelerator (RA) is a Layer 3 switching module which enables almost all local inter-subnet IP traffic to bypass local backbone routers. This frees up router capacity that can be redirected to boosting WAN bandwidth. Up to four RA's can be configured in a WaveSwitch 9200, providing a combined forwarding capacity of 6 million packets per second.

The RA operates with routers which use any routing protocol including RIP, OSPF and (E)IGRP, without requiring reconfiguration of the router, and without complicating the IP address structure of the local network. Layer 3 intelligence in the switch automatically learns the locations of local IP addresses, and that information allows the RA to forward packets directly to local IP destinations. Switch ports do not need to be assigned IP addresses as they would in a router, yet all of the forwarding functions of a router are performed by the RA on a packet-by-packet basis, including decrementing the TTL (time to live) counter, replacing the source MAC address, and recalculating header chccksums.

This "Forwarding Switch" approach is in stark contrast with Layer 3 switching products which fall into the class of a "Routing Switch" - a device which functions as a full router, assigning IP addresses to each port. Routing Switches force organizations into creating new IP subnets and reconfiguring the backbone router. This results in spreading the complexity of extensive routing deeper and deeper into their local networks, whereas Forwarding Switches provide the same gain without the added pain.

By offering plug-and-play integration and simplified ongoing administration, Plaintree's Router Accelerator provides a risk-free alternative to Routing Switches.

The Forwarding Switch approach is also superior to the type of Layer 3 switching technique often referred to as "route once, switch many." This technique requires the identification and tracking of individual traffic flows between end stations - an unnecessary complication to networking that typically requires new protocols such as NHRP (Next Hop Resolution Protocol), new elements such as route servers somewhere in the network, and/or new proprietary driver software in every end station. The RA requires none of these. It works automatically with mature, standard protocols.

FDDI Gigamodule

The FDDI interface enables organizations to migrate from FDDI to Fast/Gigabit Ethernet at their own pace. Translational bridging between FDDI and Ethernet is accomplished at full wire speed, even when IP Fragmentation (the splitting of FDDI packets into the smaller sized frames required by Ethernet) must be performed on every packet. Additionally, the FDDI module supports Source Route Bridging, providing a big boost in backbone bandwidth for enterprises where multiple Token Ring networks are bridged to a single FDDI ring and sharing its limited 100 Mbps bandwidth.

The FDDI Gigamodule has eight fiber interfaces with dual SC connectors, which can be used as eight SAS ports (Single Attach Station) or paired to provide up to four DAS ports (Dual Attach Station). Both multimode fiber and single mode fiber versions are available, serving distances greater than 14 kilometers.

"Many enterprises continue to depend upon FDDI as a LAN/server backbone technology, but are searching for ways to migrate to the higher bandwidths and lower costs associated with Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet," said Alan D. Greenfield, Senior VP of Marketing and Sales for Plaintree. "The WaveSwitch 9200 with FDDI Gigamodules provides an ideal solution for this migration, because it combines high-density FDDI switching with gigabit capacity Ethernet switching and supports wire-speed translation between the two. The benefits of FDDI's fault tolerance can be maintained for as long as the enterprise desires, while still allowing for the many-fold increases in LAN bandwidth achievable through gigabit technology."

WaveSwitch 9200

The WaveSwitch 9200 is a high-capacity enterprise switch that can sustain 16 one gigabit per second full-duplex streams at wire speed in any fully-meshed traffic configuration, providing a throughput of 24 million packets per second. When configured with 32 ports of Gigabit Ethernet, the WaveSwitch 9200 forwards data at up to 48 million packets per second. Eight Gigamodules can be mixed in any combination to provide up to 64 ports of FDDI, 32 ports of Gigabit Ethernet, 128 ports of 10/100BASE-TX or FX, or 384 ports of 10BASE-T.

Plaintree's industry-leading set of Layer 3 intelligence features, grouped under the name NextWave Switching(tm), dramatically reduces the complexity of campus internetworking. With NextWave Switching, broadcast, multicast and unicast traffic is directed only to where it is needed. The capability scales easily to various speeds, and automatically works with existing protocols. Therefore, even in multiprotocol environments, it facilitates a smooth migration to high speed, low maintenance campus LANs.

Pricing

The U.S. list price of the FDDI Gigamodule is $18,995, or $2,374 per port. The Router Accelerator Gigamodule is priced at $14,995. Both Gigamodules are available now.

Plaintree Systems

Plaintree Systems Inc. develops, manufactures, and markets switching products that improve the performance and simplify the management of enterprise local area networks. Founded in 1988, Plaintree maintains its U.S. headquarters in Newton, MA, with research, development and manufacturing based in Ottawa, Canada.

Plaintree maintains a World Wide Web site at www.plaintree.com.

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