News and Events

2003

FORCE10 NETWORKS PERFORMANCE IN WORLD’S FIRST TRANSCONTINENTAL 10 GIGABIT ETHERNET NETWORK VERIFIED BY IXIA

MILPITAS, Calif., October 15, 2003 — Force10 Networks, Inc., a pioneer in resilient switching and routing, today announced that the performance of the Force10 E-Series switch/routers deployed in a groundbreaking transcontinental 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10 GE) network has been verified as line-rate 10 GE throughput by Ixia (Nasdaq: XXIA), a leading provider of high-speed, network performance and conformance analysis systems.

The network, the world’s first transcontinental 10 GE wide area network, consists of a SURFnet OC-192 lambda between Geneva and the StarLight facility in Chicago via Amsterdam and another OC-192 lambda between this same facility in Chicago and Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada provided by CANARIE and ORANO. In this demonstration, the Force10 switch/routers connected directly to the SONET equipment using two 10 Gbps WAN PHY interfaces.

“The success of this project is a significant milestone in the development of a worldwide high availability, high performance network that will greatly expand the data sharing capabilities of the world’s leading research institutions,” said Stephen Garrison, vice president of corporate marketing at Force10 Networks. “Ixia has used their expertise to verify that a network can deliver true wire speed 10 Gigabit performance over thousands of miles.”

In the deployment, the Ixia 400T traffic generator and analyzer is connected to Force10’s switch/routers to validate performance between the Geneva/Chicago link and the Chicago/Ottawa link. Network expertise and third party validation was also provided by Cortex Networks for the test configuration and execution.

“Force10’s switch/routers were designed for high performance networks, so the throughput validation also required equipment sensitive and robust enough to accurately report on such a wide-scale deployment,” said Alan Amrod, vice president of marketing for Ixia.

The transatlantic tests were preceded by pioneering work on the Geneva – Amsterdam segment of the connection, where SURFnet, University of Amsterdam and CERN were successful in running traffic at line rate on the Force10 WAN PHY connected directly to DWDM equipment in addition to tests run over SONET. Prior to this, CERN, Carleton University, Cortex Networks and CANARIE had performed WAN PHY line rate testing over OC-192 SONET transport equipment in the CANARIE labs in Ottawa.

About Ixia
Ixia (Nasdaq: XXIA) delivers powerful, distributed, multiport traffic generators, and performance & conformance analyzers for wire-speed verification of Networks, networking devices, and applications. The company's analysis systems are used in design, manufacture, and quality assurance of the world's most heavily used network products. Its Real World Traffic™ solutions address the growing need to test applications and networks prior to deployment under realistic load conditions. Ixia's analysis solutions utilize a wide range of industry-standard interfaces, including Ethernet, SONET, ATM, etc., and they are distinguished by their performance, accuracy, reliability, 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.

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.