News and Events

2002

TOLLY GROUP AND IXIA VERIFY LINE-RATE PERFORMANCE OF 10 GIGABIT ETHERNET ON THE FORCE10 E1200 SWITCH/ROUTER

Tests Performed Across 28 Ports of 10G Ethernet In A Single E1200 Chassis

MILPITAS, Calif., September 3, 2002 — Force10 Networks, Inc., the leading developer of high performance Ethernet systems, today announced that its E1200, which was introduced today as part of the Force10 E-Series™, has been tested by the independent laboratory The Tolly Group (Manasquan, NJ) using test equipment supplied by Ixia Communications. The tests confirmed that the E1200 delivers non-blocking, line-rate forwarding across all 28 ports of 10G Ethernet with extended access control lists (ACLs) applied when tested with large frame sizes greater than 512 bytes. Tests that hammered the E1200 with smaller, more processing-intensive frame sizes yielded zero-loss throughput ranging from 98% to 99%. The Tolly Group test report is available from The Tolly Group website: www.tolly.com.

“The E1200 delivered 98-100% zero-loss throughput of 10G Ethernet across all 28 ports with Layer 2 switching and Layer 3 routing functionality,” said Kevin Tolly, president of the Tolly Group. “We were impressed with Force10’s ability to utilize 28-port full-mesh tests that fully tax the system under real-world conditions. The E1200 performed near flawlessly even under loaded conditions.”

“The Tolly Group is widely recognized as a leading independent test laboratory, and we are pleased to see comprehensive testing that verifies our claim of line-rate 10G Ethernet performance across 28 ports in the E1200,” said Steve Mullaney, vice president of marketing for Force10. “Why buy low-performing 10G Ethernet from other vendors when you can get real 10G Ethernet from Force10 today?”

The Tolly Group test was performed on the E1200 in a fully loaded meshed configuration and also in a two port-pair configuration with extensive ACLs filtering applied. Both scenarios represent a more realistic test scenario than tests that simply forward traffic on a port-to-port basis across a switch interface card with no filters present. The E1200 was connected, in the full-mesh configuration, via 28 ports of 10-Gigabit Ethernet to an Ixia Communications IXIA 1600T traffic generator.

E-Series: A Breakthrough in Scalability and High Performance Ethernet
The E-Series family, consisting of the E1200 and E600, offers the highest density Gigabit Ethernet and 10G Ethernet in the industry today. The E1200 can support up to 336 ports of Gigabit Ethernet and up to 28 ports of 10G Ethernet through its 14 line-card slots, 1.2 Tbps non-blocking switch fabric, and 40Gbps bandwidth per line-card slot. The high availability design of the E1200 includes redundant route processor modules (RPMs), redundant switch fabric modules (SFMs), redundant power and hot-swap of all key components. The E600, which is half the density of the E1200, uses the same line cards, SFMs, RPMs, and FTOS software, which simplifies network operation and maintenance.

Both the E1200 and E600 systems are shipping today.

About Ixia
Ixia (Nasdaq: XXIA) delivers powerful, distributed, multiport traffic generators, and performance/conformance analyzers for wire-speed verification of optical networking equipment, LAN, MAN, WAN and SAN multi-layer switches and routers, and sophisticated routing protocols. Its products utilize a variety of interfaces - Packet Over SONET, BERT, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet, and USB. Ixia's network operations applications address the industry's growing requirements for a higher level of control over network optimization, traffic engineering, traffic profiling, and security. Ixia's analysis solutions are distinguished by their accuracy, reliability, high port density, support for emerging protocol standards, conformance adherence, and adaptability to the industry's constant evolution. For more information, contact Ixia at 26601 W. Agoura Road, Calabasas, CA 91302; (818) 871-1800, Fax: (818) 871-1805; Email:info@ixiacom.com or visit our Web Site at http://www.ixiacom.com.

The Tolly Group
The Tolly Group, an independent testing and strategic consulting organization in Manasquan, N.J., offers a full range of services designed to furnish both the vendor and end-user communities with authoritative and unbiased information. Additionally, The Tolly Group is recognized worldwide for its expertise in assessing leading-edge technologies. For more information on the TollyGroup's services, visit its Web site at http://www.tolly.com, email inquiries to info@tolly.com, call 1-732-528-3300 or fax at 1-732-528-1888.

Contact:
Peter Ruzicka
Force10 Networks Inc.
408-965-5151
pruzicka@force10networks.com

Contact:
Jennifer Arculeo
Force10 Networks Inc.
408-965-5194
jarculeo@force10networks.com

About Force10 Networks
Force10 Networks is the pioneer in building and securing high performance networks. Based on a revolutionary system architecture that delivers best-in-class resiliency and massive scalability, Force10’s TeraScale E-Series switch/routers ensure predictable application performance, increase network availability, and reduce operating costs. Today, many of the world’s largest Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet networks depend on Force10 Networks. For additional information, please visit www.force10networks.com.

Force10 Networks and E-Series are registered trademarks, and P-Series, S-Series, TeraScale and FTOS are trademarks of Force10 Networks, Inc. All other company names are trademarks of their respective holders.