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Force10 Intros TeraScale E-Series

Force10 Networks introduced the TeraScale E-Series family of switch/routers, delivering the industry's highest Gigabit and 10 Gigabit port densities, unprecedented price/performance and best-in-class resiliency. The Force10 TeraScale E-Series supports 56 line-rate 10 Gigabit Ethernet and 672 line-rate Gigabit Ethernet ports in a single chassis, more than twice the density of its nearest competitor. In addition, the TeraScale E-Series can process 1 billion packets per second, surpassing all competitive benchmarks to rank as the world's first true Terabit switch/router.

"As grid computing power grows, line-rate, high density switches and routers become critical to ensuring that our network is both fast and manageable," said Nathaniel Mendoza, lead network test engineer at the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), which recently deployed the Force10 TeraScale E-Series. "With higher density, we can connect more nodes with fewer switches, significantly simplifying the network by eliminating the interconnecting layer required with lower density equipment."

The TeraScale E-Series significantly increases resiliency and performance by expanding upon Force10's robust switching and routing features with hardware-based port mirroring, quality of service, security and link aggregation enhancements. Additionally, the Force10 TeraScale E-Series features hardware-based IPv6 forwarding at line rate and supports an industry-leading one million access control lists (ACLs), providing scalable protection against denial of service attacks.

TeraScale E-Series Establishes New Industry Firsts

In independent tests conducted by The Tolly Group, the Force10 TeraScale E-Series was named the "First" Terabit Ethernet switch/router and "Foremost" in 10 Gigabit Ethernet Density. Additionally, the TeraScale E-Series establishes the following industry firsts:

The testing methodology and results are available at www.force10networks.com/products/reports.asp.

"For industries with rapidly growing bandwidth needs, higher density switches provide the capacity to accommodate future network growth and long-term investment protection," said Mark Bieberich, program manager at the Yankee Group, a global leader in communications and networking research and consulting. "The Force10 TeraScale E-Series, by combining high Gigabit and 10 Gigabit densities with greater resiliency, drives down both capital and operating expenses by reducing the number of switching and routing elements required to build and run a network."

The unprecedented density and throughput of the TeraScale E-Series provides exceptional capital and operational savings. For example, to build a line-rate 270-node data center with four 10 Gigabit uplinks, the Force10 solution uses one TeraScale E-Series with a list price of $380,000. A similar competitive solution requires up to five separate switching platforms with an estimated list price of nearly $1.5 million.

"With the introduction of the TeraScale E-Series, Force10 is once again setting the industry bar with a new generation of product that enables higher performance at a lower cost of ownership," said Marc Randall, president and CEO of Force10 Networks. "The unparalleled density and resiliency of the TeraScale E-Series puts it in a category of its own."

The Force10 TeraScale E-Series provides the capacity to support several generations of density increases, delivering long-term investment protection. With a backplane capacity of 5 Tb per second, the TeraScale E-Series is the only switch/router designed from the ground up to support line-rate 100 Gigabit Ethernet interfaces.

The Force10 TeraScale E-Series delivers industry-leading density and resiliency to enterprises, service providers, government organizations, data centers research facilities and educational institutions. As 10 Gigabit Ethernet adoption grows beyond the research and laboratory environments, Force10 is continuing to expand its customer base, which includes MCI, the Department of Homeland Security, NASA, NTT-ME, Veritas DGC and the Cornell Theory Center.

Force10's TeraScale E-Series comes to market as 10 Gigabit Ethernet port prices are becoming increasingly competitive with Gigabit Ethernet, driving new deployments beyond the early-adopting research and national laboratory environments. According to Dell'Oro Group, component cost reductions and increased line card densities will drive further 10 Gigabit Ethernet price reductions and widespread adoption of the technology in enterprises. The industry research firm estimates that the 10 Gigabit Ethernet market will reach $2.4 billion by 2008.