Bay Networks recently announced its full support for Private Network to Network Interface (PNNI) and voice integration for its Centillion LAN-ATM switch products. In doing so, Bay again demonstrated its leadership in ATM LAN by providing customers with best-in-class, end-to-end enterprise ATM solutions. Bay also announced the Centillion 1000 product family, including a new network centre ATM switch with high-density OC-3 and OC-12 interfaces, and several new high-capacity ATM products. This announcement reinforces Bays' adaptive networking strategy of providing best-in-class application support irrespective of the networking technologies its customers choose to implement. As network services and applications become more strategic to customers, Bay continues to provide platforms to support them. The Centillion LAN-ATM product family allows customers to integrate frame-based desktops, servers and wiring closets into high-performance cell-based enterprise backbones. Bays' leadership in building industrial-strength ATM networks is enhanced through the addition of high-performance, standards-compliant PNNI and fully-redundant ATM core switching. These new capabilities provide the increased availability which is essential to the integration of voice and ATM in business-critical networks today. In addition, PNNI dramatically extends ATM's inherent resiliency, scalability and fault tolerance in mission-critical networks. In order to provide an end-to-end solution, it is important to control ATM technology in the core of the network. The introduction of the Centillion 1000 product family is a logical next step in that direction. The unique, fully-redundant switch fabric of the new ATM switch and the introduction of PNNI, provides customers with voice integration at levels of service customers expect from Bay's ATM solutions. The Centillion 1000 ATM switch family which was developed by NEC Corporation provides voice transport, PBX interconnection and expanded network-centre switching to ATM LAN and WAN applications. NEC is highly recognised for engineering enterprise voice systems as well as developing application areas for ATM. The new product family includes three new modular chassis with 16 Centillion 1600, eight Centillion 1400 and four Centillion 1200 slots, respectively. The Centillion 1600 switch has a unique, fully redundant, non-blocking, 10 Gbps switch fabric supporting high density OC-3 (up to 64 ports) and OC-12 (up to 16 ports). The Centillion 1400 and Centillion 1200 switches come with 5 Gbps and 2.5 Gbps non-blocking switch fabrics, respectively. Interfaces the Centillion 1000 products support include 622 Mbps (OC-12) single mode, OC-12 multi-mode, 155 Mbps (OC-3) single mode, OC-3 multi-mode, OC-3 UTP, DS3/E3 and DS1/E1 (with or without circuit emulation). The Centillion 1000 switches also support high-performance, interoperable PNNI dynamic switch interconnections with the entire Centillion LAN-ATM product line. Although PNNI enhances the reliability of large ATM networks, its auto-discovery capability makes it easier to configure and manage than networks using the Interim Inter-switch Signalling Protocol (IISP). The entire Centillion switching family, including the new Centillion 1000 products, are also supported by Bays' industry leader Optivity Network Management applications. Also new to the Centillion 1000 product family is the ATM voice concentrator, which provides an efficient means for converting T1/E1 voice or video circuits to ATM cells. The ATM voice concentrator provides rich integration for either enterprise LAN or WAN voice connectivity with T1/E1 circuit emulation. The integration of voice and data over the LAN and WAN and the consolidation of services has resulted in reduced management and recurring infrastructure costs. Bay recognises the significant trend in large enterprises leveraging ATM carrier services as well as building private ATM WAN backbones. The Centillion 1000 product family enables Bay to participate in this new emerging ATM space and supports its existing ATM LAN and WAN solutions.
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