Foundry Networks' fourth consecutive participation in Gulf Information Technology Exhibition (GITEX)

Foundry Networks Middle East reported 150% achievement/performance within first half of 2004 with major customer wins in Large Enterprise, Government, PTT, Telcos and Service Provider sectors. Several customers decided to deploy Foundry gear as a result of continued worldwide growth, performance, reliable products, new state of the art technologies and excellent support and services.

Foundry Networks has introduced several technology innovative products during last 12 months such as the new 10G Terabit MG8 and NI40G for LAN's and MAN's, the new 10G EdgeIron and 10G FastIron Edge switches, AccessIron routers, wireless and latest L4-L7 and IPV6 product offerings. Customers will be able to see some/all of the new products showcased at Foundry's stand at Gitex this year.

ServerIron GT - The ServerIronGT series of fixed configuration Gigabit Layer 4-7 switches deliver the best intelligence and superior performance for security and load balancing of IP applications.

ServerIron GT E - New series of high-availability Layer 4-7 application management and web appliances for business-critical application and server farm infrastructures. The ServerIron®GT E-series family includes the industry's first high-availability 10-Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) application management appliance.

AccessIron - Family of enterprise wide area access routers includes multi-port T1/E1 and T3 access and aggregation routers, providing organizations with a scalable, reliable and cost-effective solution for building high-performance wide area networks. Featuring support for Frame Relay (FR), Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP), multi-link bonding and channelized T1/E1 and T3 interfaces, the AccessIron products support a flexible range of service and wide area network configurations. AccessIron routers offer a suite of layered security features to protect network integrity and to prevent compromise from Denial of Service (DoS) and other network attacks. Additionally, the AccessIron routers may be configured with advanced firewall functionality, providing stateful packet inspection for application-aware network security.

EdgeIron - Foundry Networks added a compact 8-port 10-Gigabit Ethernet switch to its EdgeIron® family of Layer 2 Ethernet switches. With a non-blocking 160-Gbps Ethernet switch design and wire-speed 10-GbE forwarding performance on every port, the EdgeIron 8X10G switch is the ideal solution for small enterprise backbone, as well as high performance cluster and grid computing interconnect networks. Consistent with the existing EdgeIron family of Layer 2 switches, the EdgeIron 8X10G switch features an advanced suite of standards-based Layer 2 switching features and services, redundant power supplies, and industry standard CLI.

IPV6 Technology - Foundry Networks announced support for wire-speed IPv6 and related hardware enhancements for the NetIron® 40G (NI 40G) router and BigIron® MG8 (BI MG8) switch, the company's Terabit-class 10-Gigabit Ethernet (10-GbE) platforms for Service Providers and Enterprise organizations, respectively. Additionally, Foundry announced high-density 60-port Gigabit Ethernet over Copper (GoC) modules for the BigIron MG8 platform, delivering a scalable switching solution to 1,440 Gigabit Ethernet ports in a standard 7' rack. Foundry's IPv6 solution supports a full suite of unicast and multicast services and protocols including IPv4 to IPv6 transitioning technologies to support the co-existence of the two protocols. Most enterprise and service providers require a solution that allows IPv6 and IPv4 applications and networks to interoperate. The industry has taken great care to address this requirement and has standardized techniques such as dual-stack operation and 6to4 tunneling to facilitate the transition. These technologies are supported in Foundry's IPv6 solution.

ServerIron 450 and 850 - Foundry Networks presents new high-density modular ServerIron® Layer 4-7 systems and significant enhancements to the TrafficWorks™ operating system that powers its ServerIron Layer 4-7 load balancing switches. The industry's first purpose-built 10 Gigabit Ethernet modular switches, Foundry's ServerIron 450 and 850 systems are powered by Foundry's innovative JetCore™ switching technology, high-performance network processors and rich application intelligence, to increase availability, security and scalability of mission-critical applications.

Fast Iron Edge X- Series - Foundry added new 10-Gigabit Ethernet (10-GbE) switch models to its award-winning family of FastIron® Edge Layer 2/3 Ethernet switches (FES). The new Foundry FES X-series switches extend the performance of 10-Gigabit Ethernet to the network edge at a cost and ease of deployment that will enable broad adoption of 10-Gigabit Ethernet in enterprise and service provider networks. Consistent with the FES family of switches, the new FES X-series delivers an optimized suite of Layer 2/Base Layer 3 switching, full Layer 3 routing and sFlow traffic monitoring in a compact form-factor with support for hot-swappable redundant power supplies. The introduction of Foundry's FES X-series further extends the company's 10-GbE market leadership and expands its broad 10-GbE product portfolio which includes the BigIron®, FastIron and NetIron® 10-GbE modular switches.

"The Middle East region is one of the fastest growing regions for Foundry. New markets in the region are opening up (Iraq and Libya). This is all the more exciting for Foundry. Service Providers and Enterprises are buying state of art technology as most developments in the region is new so they are moving to the latest tech right upfront. Service providers are expanding their services to 3G, broadband, etc. New ISPs are being formed due to de-regulation in the region. Due to the terrific construction boom MAN's and Data Centres are being developmed by property builders, Oil Companies and Education institutes, said Farook Majeed, Regional Sales Manager.

"Security is key for the region and Foundry has several built in security features in the core and L4-L7 products. Large enterprises have started building network operation centres and launching e-services. Wireless technology is booming since last year and has a major impact on the market. Public hotspots (cafes, restaurants, airports, lounges, colleges/universities, libraries) coupled with WiFi enabled laptops and PDAs is a way forward" said Yarob Sakhnini, Regional Technical Manager

Sakhnini added, "Competition is enforcing regions financial centres to invest in services such as e-banking, web, mobile, contact centres, which require investment in network infrastructures. Increased security fears have enabled large enterprises to look at security based products and services. This requires changes in network infrastructures and topologies. Universities/campuses are deploying 10 Gigabit Ethernet and Wireless LANs. Network management and accounting of business critical services within enterprises and Service Providers is becoming important. Real time traffic like Voice Over IP, unified messaging, video conferencing and streaming media involve changes in the way we do network management. Organisations are looking at pro-active management. Foundry's Sflow provide effective management, full Visibility of Traffic Flows Everywhere - from the Core to the Edge.