INTERCONNECTS

Foundry Networks today announced two new ultra-high-performance ServerIron Layer 4-7 switches with 10 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) to enable scalable acceleration and delivery of emerging Web and VoIP applications for business-critical content, commerce and communication services. The ServerIronGT C and E Series 10-GbE application switches include highly intelligent application traffic management, acceleration and security features to help enterprises, service providers and E-commerce businesses deliver IP and Web services with superior availability and performance. The modular design of the switches enables on-demand expansion and performance upgrades on-site, including the flexibility to add high-performance integrated SSL acceleration for secure Web service delivery. "Extreme scalability and reliability of our CDN service infrastructure is absolutely critical in delivering content for the world's top media companies," said Nathan Raciborski, CTO of Limelight Networks. "We depend on Foundry ServerIron as an essential component to our continued success as the highest performance content delivery network for digital media." The migration of traditional applications to the Web and the growing deployment of triple-play services, such as voice, video and data over a converged Ethernet/IP network, are causing an explosion of traffic volume in data centers. Today, organizations are increasingly relying on 10-GbE technologies to scale and future-proof the data center network to accommodate the dramatic increase in traffic. The new ServerIron application delivery switches help scale server farms and application infrastructure to deliver critical IP services up to 10 Gigabit rates. Additionally, these switches provides improved service quality and response time to end users, and simultaneously maximize uptime with rapid, automatic and transparent failover of users to available server resources within the data center. "Foundry's ServerIronGT 10 Gigabit switches, purpose built and engineered with a modular design, provide organizations the option for port expandability, performance upgradeability, and on-demand features implementation, including integrated SSL acceleration," said Bobby Johnson, CEO of Foundry Networks. "This unique approach helps enterprises and service providers implement a scaleable solution with full infrastructure investment protection." Foundry's new ServerIronGT C and E Series 10-GbE application switches leverage Foundry's highly-advanced and ASIC-based application processor technology to deliver over 200,000 layer 4 connections per second and advanced denial of service (DoS) protection to critical applications at multi-Gigabit wire-speed rates. These switches are purpose-built with data center class features essential for mission-critical infrastructure, including redundant power supplies, hot swappable modules, expandable port density and upgradeable performance. This design not only increases reliability and performance but also provides the customer with a scaleable infrastructure that protects their initial capital investment. The ServerIronGT C Series 10-GbE switch features an innovative two units (2U) high compact modular three-slot design, and is ideal for space constrained data centers. It packs the power of a data center class high-performance switch in the size of a traditional PC appliance. The device's one available slot may be used to add port density, insert a second active management module for doubling performance, or for integrated SSL acceleration with an optional service module. The ServerIronGT E Series 10-GbE switch offers higher expansion capacity with a four-slot design, and features front power supplies for enhanced serviceability. The management modules, line modules and SSL service modules are interchangeable among the two chassis, thus offering added expansion flexibility for the future. To ensure application availability in the event of a server or site failure, ServerIronGT switches support network designs configured for multi-site redundancy and scalability using DNS-based or IP-based Global Server Load Balancing (GSLB). The total integration of application traffic management, denial of service protection, SSL acceleration and multi-site redundancy into a single high-performance and expandable system greatly reduces the number application-specific appliances deployed in a network, and help reduce long-term equipment and ongoing network operations cost. Some of the key features supported by the ServerIronGT 10-GbE switches include: -- Efficient load balancing -- Intelligent content switching -- Secure Web traffic acceleration (SSL) -- HTTP Web compression for bandwidth optimization -- Web optimization with HTTP connection offload -- Robust application security -- High Availability configurations with hitless failover -- Comprehensive health checks -- Transparent application support -- Advanced layer 2/3 switching and routing ServerIronGT 10 GbE switches combine best-of-breed application traffic management with optional high-performance SSL acceleration to maximize the availability and optimize the performance of business-critical Web services. The switches rich set of security capabilities protect server farms against high-speed Denial of Service attacks and optimize application and server performance. The switches integrate the industry's leading wire-speed layer 2/3 switching and routing, and transfers traffic not relevant to the service in hardware at wire speed. Pricing and Availability ServerIronGT 10 Gigabit Ethernet Application Switching and Delivery Systems -- ServerIronGT C10Gx2: Two ports of 10 gigabit Ethernet, one WSM7 application switch management module, one power supply module and one expansion slot. US List Price: $39,995. Requires XENPAK Optics (extra). Available in Feb 2006. -- ServerIronGT E10Gx2P: Two ports of 10 gigabit Ethernet, one WSM7 application switch management module, one power supply module and two expansion slot. US List Price: $39,995. Requires XENPAK Optics (extra). Available in Feb 2006. Optional integrated SSL acceleration modules -- SRVC-SSL6-1: Web acceleration service module with one processor featuring hardware-based SSL acceleration and Web traffic optimization. US List Price: $9,995. Available in January 2006. -- SRVC-SSL6-2: Web acceleration service module with two processors featuring hardware-based SSL acceleration and Web traffic optimization with twice the performance of the SRVC-SSL6-1. US List Price: $17,995. Available in January 2006. The new Web acceleration service modules provide on-demand and scalable SSL acceleration and HTTP Web compression to the ServerIron application switches. These service modules are fully-featured application switch modules supporting the TrafficWorks OS software to provide secure and accelerated traffic management for all Web traffic. The Web acceleration service modules are supported on the full family of ServerIron modular systems. Available with two performance options, the new modules meet a range of needs for enterprise, e-Commerce and service provider customers. The ability to add a Web acceleration service module allows customers to invest in SSL acceleration on demand.