3Com boosts flagship Corebuilder 9000 product family to provide the central system for e-networks

3Com Corporation today announced enhancements to its CoreBuilder 9000 product family to provide an unprecedented range of network services for building e-Networks. The products are scheduled for availability in South Africa in December.

The new enhancements make the CoreBuilder 9000 family the only chassis platform that can be:

• Used in all areas of the LAN (Local Area Network), lowering the cost-of-ownership for e-Networks.

• Scaled with Layer-2 and multilayer switching performance, providing the most flexible design for e-Networks.

• Used for a full range of e-Network services beyond the LAN infrastructure, simplifying the deployment of e-business services.

"The CoreBuilder 9000 switch is our flagship enterprise product and the best central system for any e-Network," says Edgar Masri, senior vice president, Network Systems Business Unit. "These new enhancements provide essential e-Networking building blocks to deploy superior class-of-service for application support and network availability while increasing the choices for LAN access. Today`s announcement underscores 3Com`s continued significant investment within the CoreBuilder platform as well as opening the door to new business opportunities for 3Com."

The new MultiLayer Switch module is designed from 3Com`s award winning, FIRE (Flexible Intelligent Routing Engine) ASIC chip. With the ability to configure up to 14 MultiLayer Switch modules in a single CoreBuilder 9000 chassis, 3Com`s new solution provides up to nine-times the performance of competing products.

The MultiLayer Switch offers four-Gigabit Ethernet ports to deliver:

• Wire-speed , IP and IPX routing and switching at eight million packets per second, per module.

• Class-of-Service with 802.1p tagging and Quality-of-Service for bandwidth reservation.

• Up to 24 or 56 Gigabit Ethernet MultiLayer Switch ports per eight-slot and 16-slot chassis respectively.

The new module can be used throughout the entire CoreBuilder 9000 platform and is optimised for backbone installations connecting with wiring-closet downlinks and into server farms.

Each module provides four external ports using Gigabit Interface Connectors (GBICs). The GBICs enable a wide range of media interfaces to be used, expanding connectivity options and providing connection flexibility to match any existing cabling. The internal ports extend routing and switching services across the backplane to additional chassis modules 3/4 one module extends multilayer switching services across the entire chassis.

Corebuilder 9000 Eight-Slot Chassis

As the newest member of the CoreBuilder 9000 family, 3Com`s eight-slot chassis is based on the same industry-leading platform as the CoreBuilder 9000 16-slot chassis (announced in October 1998) and the CoreBuilder 9000 seven-slot chassis (announced in February 1999). Ideally suited for high performance data centers with Gigabit Ethernet and multilayer switching, the new eight-slot chassis also offers the perfect design for fault tolerant wiring closets or small to medium sized backbone connectivity. The eight-slot chassis supports all CoreBuilder I/O modules, switching fabric and management engines. The new chassis takes full advantage of the 48 Gbps (Gigabits per second) switching fabric by distributing eight Gbps of bandwidth to each chassis slot 3/4 providing the perfect complement for the MultiLayer Switch module.

V3.0 Software

3Com`s V3.0 software enhances the CoreBuilder family of products (9400, 9000 and 3500) and the SuperStack II family of products (3900 and 9300) with new, powerful management and control features.

V3.0 software boosts 3Com`s current switching installed-base and future purchases with:

• End-to-end 802.1p Class-of-Service for packet tagging and applications prioritisation.

• VRRP (Virtual Routing Redundancy Protocol) to provide dynamic fail-over protection, automatically backing up the network`s routing services.

• MPLA (MultiPoint Link Aggregation) offers a unique and superior technology for building fault-tolerant network cores.

The new software may be easily downloaded from 3Com`s Web site at: http://support.3com.com/software/switches.htm and will be available at the time of new module shipping.

Additional Corebuiler 9000 Family Enhancements

New I/O Modules and Power Supplies

In addition to the previous new products, 3Com is also announcing new connectivity options for its CoreBuilder 9000 family of products. These new products are designed to expand connectivity options and enhance chassis power by offering:

• A new six-port FDDI MultiLayer Switch module for 100/1000 Ethernet migration from legacy FDDI networks.

• New four-port Gigabit Ethernet and 20-port 100BASE-FX modules for Layer-2 switching while extending the backplane ports of the CoreBuilder 9000 switching fabric to the front panel.

• High-density fiber ports with MT-RJ connectors.

• New -48 volt DC power supply for the 7, 8, and 16 slot chassis, enhancing the CoreBuilder 9000 family`s power for the service provider market.

Availability

• Product Anticipated Availability

• Gigabit Ethernet Multilayer Switch module December 1999

• 8-slot CoreBuilder 9000 chassis November 1999

• FDDI MultiLayer Switch module December 1999

• Four-port Gigabit Ethernet Layer-2 module November 1999

• 20-port 100Base-FX Layer-2 module December 1999

• -48 Volt DC Power Supplies November 1999