Nortel Networks has unveiled Accelar 8000, a critical building block in the company`s Unified Networks strategy. The Accelar 8000 platform delivers the resilient, application-optimised performance necessary to provide true data, telephony and video application integration.
Doug Batchelor, general manager of Nortel Networks South Africa, says Accelar 8000 is set to impact on the local industry by enabling customers to build a unified network infrastructure.
"Unified Networks is Nortel`s strategy of transforming customers` current multiple networks into a single telephony/video/data-capable network," he says. "The Accelar 8000 platform provides a lower total cost of ownership while unleashing new generation business applications that enhance competitive advantage."
Batchelor stresses that Accelar 8000 is Nortel`s platform of the future to support the company`s convergence strategy. "Together with Optivity, Nortel`s single management platform which will manage Passport, Meridien and all future products, Accelar 8000 is proof that we are delivering on the promise of convergence only months after the merger between Nortel Networks and Bay Networks," he says.
The Accelar 8000 platform uses the company`s Optivity policy and network management software to deliver a fail-safe, LAN/WAN networking solution. With non-blocking forwarding performance scaling to 200 million packets per second (Mpps), the Accelar 8000 platform provides superior performance and network availability to empower innovative and critical business applications such as electronic commerce, Enterprise Resource Planning and telephony services.
"With the announcement of the Accelar 8000, it`s clear that Nortel Networks hasn`t lost any momentum during its acquisition of Bay Networks," Batchelor points out. "In fact, the Accelar 8000 demonstrates how the merged Nortel Networks has developed a highly flexible platform that should be able to accommodate the convergence of voice, video, and data, and virtually any future enterprise customer networking demands."
The Accelar 8000 switch platform provides customers with a migration path to higher-density switching while maintaining full compatibility with the company`s current enterprise solutions, including the Accelar 1000 routing switches, new Accelar 700 server switches, Centillion family of Multi-LAN switches, BayStack 450 switches, and Passport Multiservice WAN switches.
The new product will be the first Nortel Networks solution to deliver Wave Division Multiplexing (WDM) technology to enterprise customers. It is also the first integrated platform from Nortel Networks to offer wire-speed packet classification, filtering, policing and accounting to closely align network operations with business priorities.
According to Batchelor, the Accelar 8000 platform facilitates deployment of a single, consolidated enterprise infrastructure to eliminate system duplication and dramatically lower the overall cost of ownership. "The 8000 platform`s flexible architecture significantly reduces the overall cost of building and maintaining an enterprise network," he says. "This flexibility provides customers with a maximum return on their investment."
Nortel Networks delivers value to customers around the world through Unified Networks solutions, spanning mission-critical telephony 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 1997 revenues of US$15.5-billion and Bay Networks, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Nortel Networks, had revenues of US$2.4-billion during its most recent fiscal year. The combined company`s workforce totals about 80 000 employees worldwide.
Share
