Extreme Networks establishes presence in South Africa through local partner: Core Networks.

Extreme Networks winner of 28 awards has established presence in South Africa to compete in the high-end LAN market. Extreme`s local partner Core Networks will be distributing the full range of Extreme`s product line. Core Networks are visionaries in IT service and product provision and only provide the fastest and most acclaimed products in the world. Core Networks is a full-service supplier, dedicated to provide only the best in computer networking.

Extreme Networks is a leading provider of next generation LAN switching solutions that meets the increasing needs of enterprise LANs. Extreme Networks owns and develops its own silicon, the Summit Chipset. Its customer ASICs are tuned to deliver 100 percent of the multigigabit performance available on the switch, with ample buffering space for data as it passes from one bandwidth level to the next.

The common architecture shared by Summit stackable and BlackDiamond chassis switches is what sets Extreme apart from other Gigabit Ethernet implementations. Full bandwidth availability, Wire-Speed IP Routing at Layer 3, ExtremeWare with Policy-based Quality of Service and reduced network ownership costs elevate Extreme switches well above the competition.

When is a gigabit not a gigabit? When software architectures use valuable processing power for routing and other functions. Summit and BlackDiamond switches have a non-blocking switch fabric which eleminates the performance penalties associated with slower software-based switch architectures. Operating in full-duplex mode on each port, Extreme switches process a full gigabit of data in each direction.

The Extreme family of enterprise LAN switches delivers both layer 3 and layer 2 switching. Layer 3 switching is essentially very fast routing. But Extreme goes one-step further by routing IP traffic at wire speed on all switch ports. This is true routing that utilises industry-standard routing protocols - but does so at speeds never seen before.

Because they perform true routing, Summit and BlackDiamond switches are fully interoperable with existing legacy routers on your network.

As a result, the network manager can configure large meshed topologies that offer increased fault tolerance and redundancy.

Very large network can be build by combining wire-speed Layer 3 and Layer 2 switching, enabling a logical partitioning of users and groups on top of a high-performance switched infrastructure. And the better the switch architecture, the more end stations can be supported. The current generation of Extreme switches supports up to 64 000 end stations.

True quality of service (Qos) is now available for Ethernet networks through ExtremeWare, with Policy-Based Qos. A standards-based software suite, ExtremeWare is shipped with every Extreme switch. It includes support for OSPF, RIP, RIP v2, DVMRP, IGMP v2, IGMP snooping, PIM Dense Mode and IEEE 802.1D- 1998 priority levels. ExtremeWare also supports emerging Qos Standards like the Internet Engineering Task Force`s (IETF) RSVP and IEE 802.1Q frame formats for VLAN tagging.

In addition to these standards, network management takes on a whole new meaning with ExtremeWare`s Policy-Based Qos is a proactive tool that controls the network based on the type of applications and traffic that require its services.

ExtremeWare`s Policy-Based Qos delivers a major breakthrough in the ability to manage and control bandwidth on an Ethernet network.

Identifying traffic groups and creating policies for those groups result in a self-tuning network that lets the network manager decide ahead of time which traffic will have priority and under what circumstances.

Policies may be set based on variables such as MAC address, VLAN, IEEE 802.D- 1998 priority levels, IP subnet or session, protocol type or even specific TCP or UDP sessions. Even RSVP flows and IEEE 802.D-1998 priority levels can be classified as a traffic group and prioritised or scheduled accordingly.

Cost of ownership is perhaps the single most pressing issue facing network managers. And the key to optimising network investment return is to increase the breadth of network services without dramatically increasing support staff.

In addition to delivering Policy-Based Qos over a wire-speed Layer 3 infrastructure, Summit and BlackDiamond switches share the same common hardware, software and management architecture. The same core technology that`s used for network core. This brings long-overdue simplicity to the enterprise LAN and greatly reduces the cost and complexity of management and administration.

Extreme Networks is the only company that offers a powerful alternative to the patchwork of dissimilar, inconsistent network technologies that some vendors routinely acquire and tout as "seamlessly integrated".

Layer 3 switching has evolved to BlackDiamond. It`s the keystone of Extreme`s enterprise LAN system, which delivers unprecedented simplicity from the desktop to the core. Using the same hardware, software and management architecture common to all Extreme switches, BlackDiamond is the only chassis to combine Wire-Speed IP Routing and end-to-end Qos into one highly evolved system. It`s fast at 96 million packets per second throughput. It`s big on density to support over 200 desktop connections plus gigabit links for servers and backbones. And it`s fault-tolerant for mission-critical applications. BlackDiamond for Extreme Networks. Anything else is practically prehistoric.