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SAN JOSE, CA -- Nortel Networks (NYSE:NT)(TSE:NT.) today unveiled the Passport 8600 Layer 2-7 Switching Platform, a multiservice, high-capacity, carrier-class routing switch integrated with intelligent, content-aware Web switching technology from the Alteon product line. Complementing Nortel Networks Intelligent Internet initiative, this product is designed to bring a new level of network intelligence that provides security, performance, agility and efficiency to the infrastructure of service providers and enterprise customers. Passport 8600 equipped with the Alteon Web Switching Module (WSM) integrates robust Layer 2-3 switching and routing functions with comprehensive Layer 4-7 traffic management and content intelligent switching capabilities designed to optimize the delivery of content and mission critical applications in today's most demanding high-volume data center environments. "The integration of the Alteon Web Switching Module into Passport 8600 has resulted in an extremely high-performance, high-density complete Layer 2-7 routing switch solution that is affordable, massively scalable, and can be custom-tailored to meet the specific needs of each individual customer," said Mark Tharby, vice president, marketing, Intelligent Internet, Nortel Networks. "This fully integrates the functionality and performance of two of our best-in-class routing and switching products, resulting in a superior Layer 2-7 switching platform." "The architecture of this platform will ensure customers do not have to make trade-offs in terms of security for performance, nor sacrifice feature functionality for speed," Tharby said. "The ultimate benefit is the Passport 8600 Layer 2-7 Switching Platform provides the means for service providers to introduce new, revenue-generating services and for enterprises to maximize their network performance and investment." The Layer 4-7 traffic management functions enabled by the Alteon WSM are processed on each port of the Passport 8600 Layer 2-7 Switching Platform, enabling unparalleled flexibility. Because the operating system allows multiple applications to run simultaneously, the switch can serve several different functions at the same time. Increased higher-level functionality and redundancy can be added to the Passport 8600 Layer 2-7 Switching Platform simply by adding more of the Alteon WSM blades, of which up to eight modules can be incorporated into each Passport 8600. The Passport 8600 Layer 2-7 Switching Platform delivers massive scalability -- up to four million concurrent sessions can be processed simultaneously -- with built-in fail-over and redundancy. It also serves all the high-level processing functionality derived from the Alteon product line, including: server load balancing, global load balancing, streaming media server load balancing, web cache redirection, firewall load balancing, Virtual Private Network (VPN) load balancing, intrusion detection server load balancing, Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) gateway server load balancing, content filtering and bandwidth management at Gigabit speeds. The Passport 8600 Layer 2-7 Switching Platform enables processing of entire Web sessions on any port and can be easily integrated with Alteon Web appliances for increased functionality, including secure sockets layer (SSL) processing acceleration, distributed intelligent caching for streaming media and content mapping for determining the best path through the network to connect users and content. The Passport 8600 Layer 2-7 Switching Platform is equipped with software and hardware designed specifically to provide robust features, security, scalability and carrier-class reliability. Hardware-based, wire speed performance enables fast and efficient traffic classification, routing, forwarding, policy enforcement and filtering that enable time-sensitive applications, such as video and voice, as well as the provision of revenue-generating applications like Quality of Service and personalization of content. The Passport 8600 is a 10-slot, chassis-based system with a 128 Gbps switching capacity that aggregates up to 384 Fast Ethernet and 128 Gigabit Ethernet ports. Additionally, the robust switch fabric eliminates the potential for a single point of failure within the Passport 8600 Layer 2-7 Switching Platform. Alteon WSM blades are each configured with four 10/100/1000 Mbps ports, of which each port has 10 MB of memory via dedicated application-specific integrated circuits. The WSM modules typically are deployed in pairs to provide redundant network traffic processing in the event of failure. The Passport 8600 Layer 2-7 Switching Platform is available now. For more information visit www.nortelnetworks.com