Olicom has introduced an integrated, modular backbone platform specifically designed to provide the high availability needed for modern, mission-critical enterprise-wide network applications.
The Olicom CrossFire 8000 Networking Platform combines ATM technology, switches, and routers into a single, seamlessly-integrated chassis.
The platform provides a strategic solution to the task of migrating from delay-sensitive SNA-based legacy networks to current switched LANs and ultimately to high-speed (100Mbps and 1 Gbps) networks.
The CrossFire 8000 platform has the capacity to service the diverse needs of an enterprise-wide networking infrastructure.
It offers the fail-safe redundancy mechanisms needed to ensure continuous 24-hour operation.
"These standards-based devices allow complete freedom in developing long-term IT strategies while simultaneously providing the uninterrupted performance needed to reduce expensive downtime," says Olicom Africa country manager, Nick Muller.
The CrossFire`s modular platform - which can handle up to 160 switched Token Ring ports and 250 switched Ethernet ports - also accepts LAN switching, ATM switching and routing modules for a cost-effective migration to high bandwidth, while the built-in ATM backbone ensures scalable, 155 Mbps bandwidth.
The fault-tolerant design delivers uninterrupted network performance with no single point of failure and a comprehensive network management system integrates monitoring and diagnostic capabilities.
Olicom`s ClearSession protocol protects time-sensitive SNA sessions.
The CrossFire platform`s architecture features Olicom`s ATM CrossPoint Matrix (CPM) - a high-speed, full-duplex, interconnect scheme in the backplane. This effectively creates an ATM network within the CrossFire 8000 chassis, resulting in scalable bandwidth and low latency.
It supports simultaneous operation of native ATM switching traffic, LAN to LAN routing traffic, switched VLAN to switched VLAN traffic, and LAN to ATM traffic.
It is also equipped with a high-speed network management bus to transfer management information from module to module. On a network management console, a CrossFire chassis will be represented by a single icon that can be clicked on to provide a detailed status report on all the modules installed in the chassis.
Using ATM for inter-switch module connectivity provides optimal performance and easy migration to full ATM networking.
Each switch performs the Segmentation And Reassembly (SAR) functions independently so there is no single bottleneck for external ATM connectivity.
By using ATM for inter-switch module communication, the CrossFire 8000 achieves the lowest possible latency when transferring LAN information across ATM switched networks.
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