Nortel Networks has announced the EtherSpeed II family of Ethernet 10/100 switching modules for its industry-leading Centillion and System 5000BH local area network (LAN) asynchronous-transfer mode (ATM) enterprise switches.
The first in a series of new policy and performance developments for Centillion switches, the new EtherSpeed II family offers customers the optimised Quality-of-Service (QoS) necessary for supporting integration of data, telephony and video applications in the campus.
According to Doug Batchelor, regional director of Nortel Networks Enterprise Solutions in South Africa, this new technology not only provides Nortel`s customers with higher performance switching, but also extends the advantages of ATM QoS to the Ethernet edge.
"The announcement supports our stated intent to deliver intranet services that offer customers competitive advantages," he says.
Leveraging technology from Nortel Networks` industry-leading Accelar campus solution, the EtherSpeed II switches are powered by newly-developed classification technology to provide Centillion customers with more powerful forwarding, filtering and policy features. Designed to maintain wire-speed forwarding while allowing simultaneous processes, the new Centillion application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) deliver Layer 2 through Layer 7 classification, queuing, filtering and security capabilities without performance penalties.
EtherSpeed II modules are also able to perform ATM MPOA Layer 3 switching at wire-speed, and provide for robust management features by combining powerful statistical gathering capabilities with port mirroring, SNMP and RMON.
Each EtherSpeed II module has enhanced distributed processing capabilities and a newly developed 3.2 Gbps second-generation segmentation and re-assembly component (SAR). This ensures high performance, efficient throughput and the scalability to accommodate future network requirements.
"When used with Nortel Networks` Optivity network management software, Passport wide-area network (WAN) access solutions, the Inca (Internet Communications Architecture), Accelar routing switches or the BayStack family of stackable workgroup switches, the Centillion and Etherspeed II products provide an optimised end-to-end QoS solution to support next-generation converged networks," Batchelor says.
Nortel Networks works with customers world-wide to design, build, and deliver telecommunications and IP-optimised networks. Customers include public and private enterprises and institutions; Internet service providers; local, long-distance, cellular and PCS communications companies; cable television carriers; and utilities.
Nortel Networks` common shares are listed on the New York, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and London stock exchanges. Nortel Networks had 1998 revenues of US$17.6 billion and has approximately 75,000 employees world-wide.
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