News and Events

2003

NATIONAL CENTER FOR SUPERCOMPUTING APPLICATIONS CHOOSES FORCE10 NETWORKS FOR TERAGRID DEPLOYMENT PHASE II

MILPITAS, Calif., October 27, 2003 — Force10 Networks, Inc., announced today that the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois has selected Force10 Networks E-Series E1200 high density Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) switch/routers for Phase II of NCSA's portion of the TeraGrid project.

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), TeraGrid is a multi-institutional effort to build and deploy the world’s most comprehensive computing infrastructure for open scientific research. IBM provided integration services for the Phase II deployment.

Force10’s E-Series switch/routers have already been deployed in Phase I of the project at NCSA as well as at the three other original TeraGrid sites: Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), the Center for Advanced Computing Research (CACR) at the California Institute of Technology, and the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC).

“NCSA selected Force10 Networks' E1200 platform for our TeraGrid cluster aggregation solution for two key reasons. First, the E1200 was, and continues to be, the highest density Gigabit Ethernet switch available in the marketplace. Second, the E1200 delivers upon its promise of line-rate performance across all ports,” said Patrick Dorn, NCSA Technical Program Manager. “Since the time of NCSA's initial selection of the E1200, Force10 Networks has continued to impress me with their commitment. Their level of support has been very good throughout the deployment process. Additionally, Force10 has met their proposed timelines for all key hardware and software enhancements.”

“The National Center for Supercomputing Applications is one of a small group of institutions that will define the future of high performance computing,” said Stephen Garrison, vice president of corporate marketing at Force10 Networks. “The TeraGrid project is one of the largest and most demanding network environments in the world, and this deployment is testament to the massive scalability and reliability of the E-Series.”

Research centers such as NCSA are driving the expansion of cluster grid computing, the next IT revolution. Ultimately, computational grids will allow users to access enormous ‘virtual supercomputers’ – computers at different locations linked together to work as one – that will provide CPU cycles on demand. The NSF TeraGrid project uses a dedicated 40 Gbps wide area backplane to connect computers, storage facilities, visualization systems and applications at NCSA and other TeraGrid sites to create the most comprehensive grid computing environment for open scientific research in the United States. Clusters connected over this grid are using 10 GbE interconnections between Gigabit Ethernet-attached Linux server clusters.

The Force10 E-Series, the E1200 and E600, is a new generation of switch/routers providing resilient, reliable line-rate IP routing and switching at Gigabit and 10 Gigabit speeds. Built around the EtherScale ASICs, the E-Series offers the industry’s first fully distributed hardware architecture. This, in combination with the fully modular FTOS software, enables the E-Series to provide best-in-class resiliency and redundancy at line rate 10 Gigabit speeds while enabling new levels of network-based security with unique protection against Denial of Service attacks.

About NCSA
NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications) is a national high-performance computing center that develops and deploys cutting-edge computing, networking and information technologies. Located at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, NCSA is funded by the National Science Foundation. Additional support comes from the state of Illinois, the University of Illinois, private sector partners and other federal agencies. For more information, see http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/.

For more on the TeraGrid project, see http://www.teragrid.org.

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.