News and Events

2008

LAN SWITCHING STUDY SHOWS ENTERPRISES VIEW RELIABILITY AND SCALABILITY AS MOST IMPORTANT CONSIDERATIONS IN VENDOR SELECTION

SAN JOSE, Calif., February 5, 2008 – Force10 Networks®, the pioneer in building and securing reliable networks, today announced that an independent survey has found that enterprise managers view reliable performance and scalability as the most important qualities they consider when selecting a network vendor.  According to the survey conducted by Freeform Dynamics, an industry-leading analyst research firm, more than 80 percent of respondents ranked reliability as the most important consideration with scalability following as a close second.

“As the network begins supporting business critical applications, including voice, video and distributed software, it increasingly becomes more strategic to the organization and the infrastructure needs to reflect that,” said Stephen Garrison, vice president of marketing at Force10 Networks.  “We understood that the cost of unplanned downtime was too high to compromise with network design when we initially built the Force10 E-Series switch/router and by architecting for reliability from the beginning, we deliver a lower total cost of ownership to our customers.”

As enterprises look to adopt new services, networking equipment requirements evolve.  According to the survey, voice, video and distributed software are the new applications that are causing enterprises to rethink their IT infrastructure requirements.  Additionally, the survey also points to new technologies like wireless LAN, network access control and power over Ethernet (PoE) that are forcing enterprises to rethink their networks. 

For enterprises looking at these new services and technologies, reliability and scalability are the most important metrics for their networks, according to the survey.  Additionally, virtualization and the move to service oriented architectures are driving changes within the data center network and making reliability and scalability crucial to these transitions.

While reliability and scalability were the top network performance characteristics, enterprises also valued quality service and support from their networking vendors.  According to the survey, more than 65 percent of respondents consider quality of service and support a top priority.  With networks becoming critical to the success of the business, enterprises need their networking vendors to be more of a strategic partner to support their business goals, including maximum network uptime.

Finally, more than 60 percent of respondents highlighted a common operating system as one of their top five criteria for purchasing network equipment.  Increasingly, networking vendors can leverage their operating systems to deliver value to the customer.  With a consistent operating system across multiple products, that value becomes even greater as IT managers can simplify the management of their network.

The Force10 Reliable Networking product portfolio delivers the reliability, network control and scalability required to build flexible networks that are ready for evolving and emerging applications.  With FTOS™, the modular operating system that powers the Reliable Networking product portfolio, Force10 delivers a unified operating system from the data center core to the wiring closet and creates long term value and operational savings for its customers.

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 reliable, high performance networks. With its no compromise approach to networking and advances in high density Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet switching, routing and security, Force10 delivers the innovative technologies that allow customers to transform their networks into strategic assets at the lowest total cost of ownership. For additional information, please visit www.force10networks.com.

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