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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION
FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY /
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Systems/Enterprise:
FORCE10 ANNOUNCES PARTNERSHIPS W/
IBM, NCSA TeraGrid PROJECT
Force10 Networks Inc announced that IBM Corp will resell Force10's 1-Gb per
second Ethernet and 10-Gb per second Ethernet switches. Also announced was the
National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois
(NCSA) as the company's first customer.
The NCSA has selected Force10's E1200 series switches for the second phase
of
its TeraGrid project. Sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF),
TeraGrid is focused on building one of the world's largest Grid computing
networks. IBM Global Services provided integration services for the
deployment.
Force10 was the first vendor to offer true line-rate 10-Gb per second
Ethernet
switching in a fully meshed configuration.
Since then, Cisco Systems, Extreme Networks and Foundry Networks have
introduced products that are supposed to full line rate in certain
configurations. Cisco's began shipping this summer, while Foundry's just
shipped last quarter and Extreme Networks' expects to ship its product in
December.
Force10 has been very successful in the research community. Prior to the
IBM
deal, Force10 had announced deployments with the NCSA and the San Diego
Supercomputer Center. It's products also have been selected by Argonne
National Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Lawrence Berkeley
National Laboratories and The London Internet Exchange Ltd, along with several
other research institutions.
Although both Force10 and IBM benefit from the relationship, it upset some
of
IBM's other partners, namely Cisco. IBM and Cisco have been close partners
since 1999 when IBM sold off its networking business, which included all its
switching and routing products as well as its patents, to Cisco for about $2
billion.
IBM currently resells Cisco gear into the enterprise, including some
storage
products and the Catalyst 6500, Cisco's 10-Gb per second Ethernet switch,
which competes with Force10's E-Series switches.
The relationship could cause some tension between the companies, but
probably
not enough to destroy the Cisco/IBM partnership.
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