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Grabbing at a deal too good to pass up, top gun token-ring switch start-up Centillion Networks, Inc. is ending its brief solo flight to merge with Bay Networks, Inc. in a stock trade valued at $140 million.

The companies today will close on a deal making Centillion an independent operating unit of Bay Networks. Centillion will retain its original management team, carrying on its mission to escort affluent IBM shops into the realm of switched LAN and Asynchronous Transfer Mode networking.

For Bay Networks, the deal promises great Tiffany Somerset dangle cuff in the switched LAN territory. Centillion’s Speed Switch 100 gives Bay Networks a powerful ATM-based LAN backbone switch that has blazed a trail into token-ring accounts since it shipped last November.

At last week’s formal announcement, Bay Networks officials did not dwell on the switch’s broader capabilities. But the fact that the Speed Switch is designed to handle more than token-ring switching could make it a considerable prize in Bay Network’s legacy LAN-to-ATM migration strategy.

“We see it as complementary, not replacing what we’re doing [with ATM],” said Gary Bowen, Bay Networks’ executive vice president of sales and marketing. “We already make everything but a token-ring switch, and the Centillion technology is strategic to our business.”

For Centillion, the deal caps a notable start-up career. The firm was founded in 1993 and has earned a solid reputation over the last six months for its engineering and customer support, with about 160 switches shipped to more than 100 accounts so far. Analysts and customers expected the company to carry on alone at least to the point of an initial public offering.

“Many other Return to Tiffany Heart Lock Cuff approached us with a similar type of arrangement,” said Selina Lo, Centillion’s vice president of marketing. “Bay had a lot to offer — more than just the money. The offer gives us the opportunity to fulfill what we first set out to do. It’s bigger than just token-ring switching.”

Switching agendas?

Some observers wondered why Bay Networks focused almost exclusively on token-ring switching in its announcement, largely ignoring the wider capabilities of the Speed Switch.

“[Bay Networks] has paid a fairly extravagant price for Centillion, and it’s likely there’s a hidden agenda here,” said Elsa Peretti Open Heart pendant Pigg, director of data communications for The Yankee Group, a Boston-based consultancy. “What Centillion has is really an ATM switch. Bay claimed it won’t get in the way of its own LightSabre [ATM switch development], but they didn’t explain how it fits, either.”

Centillion plans this summer to release an Ethernet module for Speed Switch, and an FDDI module is currently in trials. With an ATM switching fabric at the core of the box, plus native-LAN switching and protocol translation on each module, Speed Switch is a multiprotocol backbone device that can act as a go-between among LANs, hubs, routers and ATM backbones.

Bay Networks can target the switch not just at IBM shops, but also at Cisco Systems, Inc.’s router accounts and Cabletron Systems, Inc. hub users.

Bay Networks Medium Elsa Peretti Open Heart pendant to pull Speed Switch under its Optivity network management system and integrate it into its System 5000 switching hub, among other things. The issue for users then becomes overall ease of network management.

GE Financial Capital Corp. runs a global network based on Cisco’s wide-area routers and Bay Networks’ line of SynOptics hubs. The firm recently installed a Speed Switch to help ease its overloaded token-ring LANs and will add more as the switch proves itself.

Knowing that Cisco will soon release a token-ring switch stemming from its Kalpana, Inc. acquisition last fall, David Murray, GE Financial’s network manager, said, “I’d stay with the Speed Switch just to have it integrated with my hubs.

“If you have to keep things apart, it’s better to split out the router management,” he said. “The Cisco routers are key Small Elsa Peretti Open Heart pendant and exit points to the wide area, whereas the Speed Switch and hubs make up our whole internal network. They handle every single packet that flies around this place, and they need to hang together. The routers can be managed alone.”

CONSOLIDATION in the internetworking business has claimed yet another company. Bay Networks Inc. last week announced plans to acquire Token Ring switching vendor Centillion Networks Inc.

The $150 million acquisition of 2-year-old Centillion, which previously had Return to Tiffany heart lock charm and bracelet non-exclusive reseller agreement with Bay Networks, solidifies Bay Networks’ position as a player in the market for replacing shared media Token Ring LANs with switch-based systems.

The Token Ring switching market is expected to grow from $51 million in 1995 to $481 million in 1998 as IS sites move to revamp increasingly outdated networks, according to the Yankee Group, a consulting and research company located in Boston.

“This fills a glaring hole in Bay’s switching product line and will make the company a force to be reckoned with in competition for the huge number of IBM Token Ring shops,” said Skip MacAskill, a senior research analyst with Gartner Group Inc., a Stamford, Conn., consultancy. “This move gives Bay instant credibility in the Token Ring switching market.”

Some Return to Tiffany Bead Bracelet managers said the acquisition reaffirms their confidence in the Centillion product line.

“It eliminates the concerns about the company’s financial stability and field support,” said Bob Brandner, network engineering manager for Aetna Life & Casualty Co., in Hartford, Conn., a Bay Networks user. “The [planned] acquisition legitimizes for large users the idea of investing in a small company.”

Recent months have seen a flurry of activity in the Token Ring switching business with Cabletron Systems Inc., 3Com Corp., Madge Networks Inc., IBM, and Chipcom Corp. all announcing products designed to lure customers away from shared media.

Bay Networks will counter these moves by continuing to sell Centillion’s SpeedSwitch 100 Token-Ring-to-ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) switch and integrating the same Token Ring switching technology in its System 5000 hub.

Bert Williams, product manager for Token Ring switching products at Bay Networks, said the latter could be accomplished by adding the Elsa Peretti Eternal Circle Bracelet 100’s 3.2-gigabit-per-second (Gbps) ATM switching fabric as one of the System 5000’s backplanes.

The 5000 already has 2.5Gbps and 10Gbps backplanes. Bay Networks said roughly one-third of its annual revenue is from sales of Token Ring networking products.

Bay Networks will Elsa Peretti Round Bracelet provide management tools for both products based on its Optivity network management system. These will ship in the third quarter. Centillion’s switching technology will be integrated in the System 5000 switch by mid-1996.

In addition to dedicated 4Mbps or 16Mbps bandwidth through as many as 24 ports, the SpeedSwitch offers ATM or FDDI links to servers or backbone networks. Centillion said it has shipped SpeedSwitch 100s for use at more than 100 sites. Roughly 65 percent of the units have been shipped with an optional ATM uplink Horse charm bracelet.

Six months after shipping its first product, Centillion Networks, Inc. stands as a textbook example of hitting the rest where they ain’t.

While scores of other vendors tripped over Party charm bracelet other in the race to sell Ethernet switches, Centillion planted a lone stake in the market for token-ring switches. Last week, that strategy paid off when Bay Networks, Inc. bought Centillion for $140 million in stock–a tremendous valuation for a company that has sold about $6.5 million of products to date, according to analysts.

The transaction surprised many analysts since Centillion is known for its feisty independence. Just last January, for instance, President and Chief Executive Officer Bobby Johnson said the company was not seeking a partner.

“But at $140 million, it was too attractive even for a 1-1/2-year-old company like us to pass up,” Johnson said recently.

To put the deal in perspective: Cisco Systems, Inc. paid $207 million for Kalpana, Inc., which had shipped about $330 million worth of Ethernet switches over the course of nearly five years. And Kalpana is still beta-testing a token-ring switch that analysts say falls short of the scope and functionality offered in Centillion’s Speed Switch 100.

So what exactly makes Centillion so appealing to Bay Networks? Officials at Bay Networks speak of the Centillion deal as an initiative aimed specifically at IBM accounts. But the investment gives them much more than that Centillion’s founders started with an architecture that was carefully planned to adapt as underlying technologies change. Conceived as a Tiffany Red heart lock charm and bracelet switch that can be scaled up and down using the same basic fabric, Speed Switch is intended to last many years in existing LAN switching environments as well as in Asynchronous Transfer Mode networks.

Token-ring advantage

Three former employees of Network Equipment Technologies, Inc. (NET) founded Centillion in September 1993. Ethernet switching was coming into its own at that time, as was ATM, which NET pioneered but then dropped.

With several start-up options in mind, the founders decided that token-ring LANs begged all the benefits that switching would bring to Ethernet and that ATM held the key to making a business of it.

“Ethernet switching got the early attention because it’s a simpler proposition than token ring,” Johnson says. “The technology is a bit simpler, the market is much bigger, and the customer base is more accustomed to dealing with small start-up companies.”

Token ring–with its IBM heritage–tends to run in very large enterprises that take a conservative approach to networking change. Startups have a hard tine getting their foot into doors built wide and heavy for the Big Blue entourage.

“But NET has a strong presence in that same market,” Johnson says. “A lot of token-ring traffic runs over IDNX [multiplexer] backbones. So when [Centillion] called on those contacts to sound out the market for a token-ring Paloma’s Zellige bracelet, they already knew who we were.”

Those early discussions helped to hone the Speed Switch design and place it in beta trials. The switch shipped last November on time and with about $1 million of Centillion’s $4.6 million first-round venture money still in the bank.

The company landed $6.3 million from a second-round of venture capital financing in January. That money was earmarked for the company’s expansion in sales through distributors and customer support.

“Centillion so far has been truly unique–both frugal and technically on the ball,” says Kathryn Korostoff, president of Sage Research, Inc. in Natick, Mass.

What’s gotten them this far is the fact they they’re the only ones with a product,” Korostoff says. “It wasn’t until Centillion started getting a lot of visibility that the big companies looked up and said, ‘Oh, wow, token-ring switching. I bet our SNA clients would love that.’”

LANs to come

Token-ring switching is just the start. Before the acquisition, Centillion planned to release an Ethernet switching module this summer, and a Fiber Distributed Date Interface module is already in trials. These products have not been formally announced, and Bay Networks officials will not comment on the plans, but Johnson says the development will continue.

“These are strategic directions we’ve undertaken,” he says.

It is this strategic Return to Tiffany heart lock charm and bracelet, analysts and customers agree, that makes the Speed Switch a more capable, higher end product than others that are focused just on token-ring LANs.

“Token ring was our launching pad,” says Selina Lo, Centillion’s vice president of marketing. “But our business focus overall is to provide the easiest migrations for big Fortune 1000 accounts as they move in whatever direction they choose.”

Users can move from token ring to Ethernet if that’s what they want. “We give them any option, and that’s what sets us apart fro the vendors who will target just token-ring switching,” Lo says.

The Speed Switch is, in fact, an ATM switch, which makes this flexibility possible. Its 3.2G bit/sec ATM backplane connects six slots that can hold modules of any networking flavor. Each module has its own segmentation and reassembly chip that turns frames into cells. These cells travel over the ATM core fabric Return to Tiffany bead bracelet can be converted back into frames on another LAN module.

ATM isn’t for everyone–at least right now.

While Asynchronous Transfer Mode standards are starting to stabilize and products have begun to roll out, Ethernet switches are making their mark now.

Ethernet switches provide dedicated 10M bit/sec pipes to the desktop, easing bandwidth crunches. They are coming to market in droves and flying off shelves into corporate nets. Tam Dell’Oro, principal at Dell’Oro Return to Tiffany mini heart tags bracelet, figures that 1.6 million Ethernet switch ports will ship this year. In many cases, the Ethernet switches support ATM connections, so customers can move to the higher speed technology when they wish.

Cisco Systems, Inc. recently announced that in June, it will ship Catalyst 5000, a switch that links switched Ethernet and token-ring LANs to ATM backbones, while rival Bay Networks, Inc. this quarter is scheduled to release new Ethernet and ATM modules that could turn its System 5000 into a scalable switching system.

And according to Dell’Oro, NetEdge Systems, Inc. has an Ethernet-to-ATM switch with routing functionality in beta now.

For customers ready to move to ATM soon, Fore Systems, Inc., Bay Networks, Cisco, Newbridge Networks, Inc. and Digital Equipment Corp. are among those companies with ATM products already available.

Chipcom Corp. also joined the ATM fray by recently announcing a suite of products, including its ATM-ready ONcore Switching System, a module and backplane kit for the ONcore Switch, a workgroup hub and adapter cards. They are scheduled to ship this quarter.

Messaging Tiffany 1837 circle clasp bracelet

As LAN administratols grapple with switching technology, electronic mail users look forward to switching to next-generation client/server messaging systems. But optimism is being dimmed as Lotus Development Corp. and Microsoft Corp. have delayed shipment of their respective CommServer and Exchange products until later this year. According to industry observers, larger companies, in particular, are giving up the wait and are seriously considering alternatives to the Lotus and Microsoft offerings.

David Whitten, a vice president at consultancy Gartner Group, Inc., said there is a window of opportunity in the messaging market for vendors such as Hewlett-Packard Co. due to the product delays. HP’s OpenMail is a strong option because it is available and supports Lotus cc:Mail and Microsoft Mail clients.

Other products getting a close look by customers are Digital’s MailWorks and Banyan Systems, Inc.’s Intelligent Messaging, Whitten said.

“I [have] yet to speak to someone that’s beta-testing [CommServer], and a product of this magnitude, at a bare minimum, needs nine months of beta,” Whitten said.

“I would say [shipment during] mid-calendar 1995 is extremely optimistic. In fact, [it's] impossible,” he added. Microsoft has some fundamental questions to answer about Exchange, too, according to David Marshak, vice president and senior consultant at Patricia Seybold Group, Inc. in Boston.

He wondered if Microsoft will ever deliver on Exchange, and if it is delivered, how the functionality Elsa Peretti Open Heart bracelet compare to original promises. Early indications, he pointed out, are that Exchange initially will be positioned as a standard client/server E-mail system, not a full-blown groupware offering.

For most users, the more compete routing/switching issues will only begin gathering steam in the next 12 months. Of nearly 160 Speed Switches shipped so far, about 60% have an ATM interface for trunking between switches.

But the switch is being configured mainly as a token-ring device to improve overloaded LANs.

“Centillion’s ATM aspect is not an issue for us now, but I do think it’ll be important to us down the road,” says Harry Gentner, information services systems manager at the Baptist Foundation of Arizona in Phoenix.

The Baptist Tiffany 1837 Circle bracelet simply needed a token-ring switch, and Centillion offered the only solution.

Until it gets to the more convoluted ATM markets that lay ahead, Centillion must make its living among this straightforward token-ring crowd. Analysts, therefore, have hovered around distribution as the single most important factor for Centillion’s survival.

Bay Networks’ copious channels now eliminate that concern, they agree. The question now may be how well Centillion enjoys living under someone else’s roof. The company will become an independent operating unit of Bay Networks, retaining its original management team, which will be given a long leash.

The company’s founders and venture partners did not expect to sell out so soon.

“Our plan from the beginning was to go it alone, to move along as an independent company,” says Geoffrey Yang, a general partner at Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), Centillion’s leading backer.

“We weren’t looking to sell the company, but [Bay Networks] gave us an offer Tiffany Blue heart lock charm and bracelet couldn’t turn down,” Yang says.

IVP’s 20% stake in Centillion translates to $28 million worth of Bay Networks stock, which Yang intended to hold. “The stock is more attractive to us than a cash deal would have been,” he says. “With the synergy of these two companies, I think there’s a good ride left in Bay, and we’re going to take that ride for a while.”

For something that has a flat EKG, the Token Ring market sure seems to have a lot of life.

Many observers, such as John DePietro, an analyst at International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass., say Token Ring LANs will simply never become the big-dollar market that Ethernet is.

But some say the market will grow rapidly for some time to Paloma Picasso Loving Heart bracelet.

“The Token Ring market is really going to take off later this year,” said Peter Rubicam, an analyst at Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc., a New York brokerage house.

Rubicam is not alone in his expectation that Token Ring switching will accelerate. Witness Bay Networks, Inc.’s recent purchase of Centillion Networks, Inc. for $140 million. Or Cisco Systems, Inc.’s Token Ring router/hub, a product jointly produced with LanOptics Ltd. in Israel.

Attention grabber

The reason for continued interest in Token Ring is the installed base of customers who use the IBM networking technology. Analysts point out that because many large companies tend to choose Token Ring, there is significant growth automatically built in. Also, these types of enterprises will tend to spend the extra money to get Token Ring as they think it is cheaper than Ethernet LANs in Tiffany Charm bracelet long run because it is more reliable.

“Sites with both [Ethernet and Token Ring] generally have their mission-critical stuff running on Token Ring, partly because it’s assured delivery on the network,” said Stan Schatt, director of LAN research at Computer Intelligence InfoCorp, a market researcher in La Jolla, Calif. Token Ring’s architecture gives it an inherent level of security over Ethernet.

Schatt said Token Ring offers more sophisticated management features than Ethernet. He estimated that 50% of all Token Ring shops also use Ethernet.

Now Bay Networks, which sells to these customers on the Ethernet side, can also sell them Token Ring products, rather than ceding the business to a company such as Madge Networks, Inc. or Standard Microsystems Corp.

The Centillion purchase “was a very good move on the part of Bay, and it fills in a serious gap in its product line,” Schatt said.

In particular, because the Speed Switch 100 supports Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) as well, Bay has a solid entree into the ATM market. ATM is expected to be a next-generation, high-bandwidth data transfer protocol. Ironically, despite the small number of vendors in the Token Ring market, Schatt said there is little room for newcomers. The enterprisewide nature of Token Ring makes it a complex sell.

Connections count

But well-established players such as Cisco can leverage their relationships to break into the market. Tiffany Notes tag bracelet new 2517 router/hub brings LanOptics’ unshielded twisted-pair Token Ring hub media into Cisco’s Internetwork Operating System.

The router/hub will ship in July and cost $5,995 to $7,995. It includes 4M to 8M bytes of flash erasable programmable read-only memory and 2M to 6M bytes of dynamic RAM.Cisco Systems, Inc. and LanOptics, Ltd. this week will extend their joint development pact with an OEM agreement that allows Cisco to resell LanOptics’ remote access networking products.

Cisco will market an integrated token-ring routing hub that will be labeled the Cisco 2517, according to sources familiar with the deal. The box links remote office token rings to corporate internetworks or the Charm bracelet.

The 2517 is based on LanOptics’ StackNetPro hub and Cisco’s access routing technology. It will support StackNetPro’s extension units, which enable users to add ports as the number of stations on remote LANs increase.

Cisco is targeting the new device at IBM Systems Network Architecture shops that are migrating their SNA networks to distributed client/server environments.

Cisco believes that the device will appeal to branch offices of financial institutions and others that are installing more token-ring LANs than 3174 cluster controllers, according to sources.

The LanOptics deal underscores Cisco’s aggressive assault on IBM’s turf. The firm two weeks ago announced Heart chain bracelet Peer-to-Peer Networking for its routers, signed an OEM agreement in March with Madge Networks, Inc. for a token-ring switch, and announced Data Link Switching software and a channel attachment for its highend routers that are all designed to steal LAN internetworking marketshare from Big Blue.

“Cisco is in a token-ring frenzy, and the relationship between Cisco and IBM is not friendly,” said Glenn Gabriel Ben-Yosef, president of Clear Thinking Research, Inc. in Boston.

Details about the 2517’s port density, pricing and configuration options could not be attained by press time.

As barriers to speed drop, infrared technology is gaining an increased role in connectivity.

Users and information systems departments for years have fought the classic problems associated with portable computers: installing large applications, moving working files, synchronizing desktops and notebooks and Tiffany 1837 Toggle bracelet cables to print files from notebooks.

Notebook manufacturers offered infrared ports as a solution. Operating at serial port speeds of 115K bit/ sec., notebooks could wirelessly send jobs to a printer or exchange files with a desktop.

Though convenient, infrared connections were generally considered too slow. IBM pioneered the first 1.2M bit/sec. infrared ports, which let ThinkPad notebooks communicate eight times faster, but only among themselves. Desktop receivers, which connect to the serial port of the printer or desktop computer, still topped out at 115K bit/sec.

Recent advances raise the ante. Hewlett-Packard Co.’s Netbeam IR ($299) and Extended Systems, Inc.’s JetEye Plus ($349) are network-compatible infrared devices that connect any portable to a 110Base-T or 110Base-2 Ethernet LAN. Token Ring will follow this summer. Support for Infrared Data Association (IRDA) standards for hardware, operating systems and applications software communications makes the connection transparent. The 4M bit/sec. data rate of the network adapters (about the same as a double-speed CD-ROM drive) and recent high-end notebooks makes the connection speed practical.

We conducted several tests in which we used three notebooks: a Gateway 2000, Inc. Solo 90 that uses a standard 115K bit/sec. infrared port, an IBM ThinkPad 760 with a 1.2M bit/sec. port and an HP Omnibook 5500 with a 4M bit/sec. port.

The difference between wired and wireless connections when printing typical letter-size documents or graphics-laden pages on an HP DeskJet 340 or LaserJet 5P was negligible. The difference came when printing long documents on the LaserJet. With a 20-page document, the parallel connection was twice as fast as the infrared connection. But the wait was manageable because the Frank Gehry Fish toggle bracelet took less than five minutes to print. The wait for copying files depends on the connection and the software. With the Netbeam IR or JetEye Plus on a Windows NT and Ethernet network, it took about six minutes to copy a 12M-byte movie clip from a ThinkPad to a networked desktop system. The Omnibook took less than a minute, a tribute to its faster port. But Windows reported that the Solo would take 59 minutes.

Though you may be able to cut the cable, infrared connections have several rough spots. They are limited to about 5 feet and follow a line-of-sight path. Cluttered desks are the bane of infrared, and the location of infrared ports on the notebook is important. The ThinkPad conveniently locates infrared ports on the front and back sides. The port on Digital Equipment Corp.’s HiNote is on the right side, an awkward location on most desks for making a connection.

The plug-and-play feature of Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0 doesn’t cover the multistep installation of IRDA drivers. Reading the highly legible manuals solves this problem. Manually restarting the infrared network connection on the notebook each time Windows restarts can be annoying.

Some longtime Token Ring users are moving to Ethernet switching to save money and boost network performance.

These users are tired of IBM’s pricey Token Ring adapter cards and the slow emergence of Token Ring Elsa Peretti Sevillana Mesh bracelet. So instead of making the move to “True Blue” Token Ring switching, they are going with tried-and-true Ethernet.

“We were an IBM shop with 300 to 400 Micro Channel PCs but wanted to open up to alternative vendors such as Dell, Gateway and Micron,” said Ian Steward, director of information systems at Fish & Richardson, a Boston law firm. “The $100 Ethernet adapters looked much better than $300 to $400 Token Ring adapters.”

Steward said he was also looking for a way to support what he thought would be a very popular imaging application that would require more bandwidth than a shared Token Ring network could provide. The firm upgraded to Ethernet switching from 3Com Corp.

Token Ring switching has come along slower than Ethernet switching for a reason. The 10M bit/sec. shared Ethernet LANs run out of capacity before 16M bit/sec. Token Rings. So Ethernet users ran out of bandwidth first, and that sparked the rapid emergence of Ethernet switching (see chart, page 58).

Users who Elsa Peretti Sevillana bracelet the move go from sharing 16M bit/sec. on a Token Ring LAN with many end users to having a dedicated 10M bit/sec. personal bandwidth pipe to each desktop with Ethernet switches.

Analysts said shared Token Ring LANs are becoming an endangered species.

“Token Ring is on the way out, as [Token Ring] adapter cards sales are flat,” said Trudy Barker, director and principal analyst at Dataquest, a San Jose, Calif., consulting and research firm. “Token Ring switching can turbocharge these networks, but many users are moving to Ethernet switching and Fast Ethernet instead.”

That’s certainly the case at First Union National Bank Corp. in Charlotte, N.C.

“We’ve given over 3,000 end users switched Ethernet instead of shared Token Ring already - with 1,500 more due soon,” said Fred Cory, assistant vice president and consulting networks systems engineer. Cory and Tod Price, a consulting network systems Toggle bracelet, calculated they save approximately $400 per seat by going with Ethernet switching over shared Token Ring in new facilities.

Cory, who chose switches from Cisco Systems, Inc., said some PC vendors such as Compaq Computer Corp. ship their PCs with Ethernet adapters

The Olicom ATM adapter we used does support the 802.5 LANE encapsulation needed for token-ring emulated LANs, but we couldn’t use it for the same reason described above.

Most routing vendors, including Cisco, expect to support token-ring LANE in the near future. Other vendors, such as NetEdge Systems, Inc., currently support token-ring source route bridging over ATM via PVC.

The only way to communicate between a source route bridge network and a transparent bridge network is translational bridging, where source route bridging is translated to transparent bridging. In the test scenario, source routing Flower charm bracelet to be terminated at one edge of the ATM cloud and reassembled at the other. That means the routers strip all source routing information from each packet, make bridging decisions over the Ethernet network based on that information, then put the source routing data back on when the packet gets to the other side.

Such translational bridging has been one of the worst nightmares of the internetworking era. It is never a good idea to attempt this as it is complex and usually fails.

Since the Cisco code does not support what is known as source-route-transparent bridging, we didn’t even have the option. We simply could not create a bridged connection in this environment.

Keep in mind that the ATM backbone appeared to the devices attached to the token ring as an Ethernet LAN because the version of Cisco LANE employed only emulated Ethernet. That meant the token-ring sessions that did work were forced to use the maximum Ethernet packet size of 1,518 bytes. Our research has shown that token-ring file-transfer applications perform best when using a 4K-byte packet size, as they typically do in pure token-ring environments where the maximum frame size is approximately 18K bytes. Next, we tried a token-ring client and an ATM Elsa Peretti Open Heart bracelet. The server used the same Olicom adapter as in the Ethernet tests. We had no trouble with IP and IPX routing, but, as with the Ethernet to ATM scenario, we could not get NETBIOS working due to the lack of source routing support.

To finish the barrage of scenarios, we connected a token-ring client to an Ethernet server over ATM with similar results: IP and IPX routing was fine, and bridging NETBIOS was not possible.

Complexity of configuration

We found that ATM and ATM-LAN integration adds significant complexity to network configuration, management and ongoing operations. This complexity, as with any new technology, stems from both unfamiliar and, in the case of standards, evolving logical attributes and the need for additional physical configuration.

Logically, the connection-oriented nature of ATM, developing standards and new terminology contribute to a steep learning curve. Multicast protocols aside, each ATM session is a direct connection between two devices transferring data. This necessitates a new set of analysis tools and procedures different from those used for broadcast-based shared LANs. Net managers must learn terms such as LANE Configuration Server, Emulated LAN and Interim Local Management Interface (see story, page 63).

And anyone unfortunate enough to have to troubleshoot a connection gone awry must make the transition from the traditional 6-byte LAN media access control address to a whopping 20-byte ATM address.

Physically, configuring an ATM network requires learning the operation of at least one completely new device: the switch.

Additionally, some extra work must be done to get routers and servers Return to Tiffany Heart tag bracelet. Although not a major task with SVCs, some configuration must be done on the switch to set the correct signaling protocol and parameters such as bandwidth allocation.

The router and any servers having their job descriptions changed to ATMbased resource must be given new interfaces and have all associated LANE parameters and definitions configured. This required an extra five or so lines in the Cisco configuration file and was, thankfully, an even easier task for the Olicom adapter.

Once the switch and routers were configured (including traditional pre-ATM router setup), the rest was plug-and-play. The LAN clients, with traditional LAN drivers, connected seamlessly to their ATM- and LAN-based servers.

So what’s it all cost?

Although prices, in general, are coming down, the ATM connections for this implementation are still quite expensive. The Fore switch outfitted with a single four-port card costs $33,680, and the base router costs $19,080. Worse, the singleport ATM OC-3 card for the Cisco router costs $26,000. After this, the Olicom PCI server adapters seem like a bargain at just under $1,000.

On the plus side, Bead bracelet fiber cable can be reterminated for ATM (although the termination is usually the majority of the cost for a fiber run) and LAN clients need no modification or accompanying investment.

Cost issues aside, the results here are actually quite encouraging, given the complete lack of standards-based interoperable products we encountered in previous ATM tests.

Clearly, those of you with networks based on Ethernet running purely IP and IPX will have the easiest time integrating ATM technology both as a backbone topology and for server connections.

On the other hand, while we did not evaluate a multiswitch environment, few vendors advertise interoperability between switches for Tiffany Cushion Two-row bracelet SVC support. So, in the near term at least, it appears safer to procure all ATM switches from a single vendor.

While ATM is already in its fifth year of trade show presence, you’re likely trying to determine if it is yet the first year for the technology as a viable solution for your production network.

To help you in that effort, we attempted to gauge the state of the Elsa Peretti Teardrop bracelet by building a prototype campus backbone using Asynchronous Transfer Mode to link legacy Ethernet and token-ring LANs and provide high-speed server connections.

The focus was on multiprotocol connectivity, given that performance is meaningless if devices cannot communicate. We evaluated IP and IPX routing as well as NETBIOS bridging using clients and servers on ATM, Ethernet and tokenring LANs. We used ATM Forumcompliant LAN Emulation (LANE) 1.0 for transporting native LAN traffic over ATM. Additionally, we kept careful notes on the complexity and cost of our pilot ATM net, which consisted of two Infinity hubs from Optical Data Systems, Inc. (ODS) housing Cisco Systems, Inc. routers. ODS resells the routers with an ATM switch that it receives from Fore Systems, Inc.

The generally good Atlas charm bracelet is reserved for Ethernet users. Routed IP and IPX traffic was handled flawlessly, whether the connection was Ethernet-toEthernet via ATM or Ethernet-to-ATM client-to-server. The switch and routers used the dynamic switched virtual circuit (SVC) approach embodied in the User-to-Network Interface (UNI) 3.0 signaling necessary for LANE to function. Bridging over ATM was not as elegant, as the products we used required permanent virtual circuits (PVC) between routers to be manually configured - a time-consuming task.

The bad news is that if the gear we tested is representative of the industry overall, token-ring network managers will be sitting on the sidelines for some time. IP and IPX routing do work in both token ringto-token ring via ATM and token ring-to-ATM scenarios. But source route bridging support, mandatory in token-ring environments, is missing. Without such support, you cannot even begin to consider replacing your core token-ring networks with ATM.

ATM-legacy integration

We circulated a request for proposal for ATM-legacy integration among a number of vendors when the project began several months back. Our approach was to use ATM 155M bit/sec OC-3 connections as fat pipes in the core of our network. They would replace, say, an existing shared 100M bit/sec FDDI environment. Only ODS came forth with a solution that met our criteria.

LANE 1.0, the de jure standard for linking legacy LANs and ATM, is the key to ATM-legacy Atlas toggle bracelet. LANE takes care of setting up connections and shipping LAN traffic in and out of the ATM cloud.

Using a set of functions defined by the ATM Forum, the circuit-based ATM network is made to look like a traditional shared, packet-based LAN to existing systems such as Microsoft Corp.’s Windows NT and Novell,Inc.’s NetWare.

The Cisco routers support various services LAN Emulation Configuration Server (LECS), LAN Emulation Server (LES) and Broadcast and Unknown Server (BUS) - to make the entire ATM network appear as a single emulated LAN. All signaling, session setup, segmentation into cells and reassembly into packets is carried out by code in the routers. The Fore switch, running the ATM Forum’s UNI 3.0, was called upon to set up dynamic connections between the LANs.

Ethernet and ATM

First, we tried connecting two Ethernet segments. Connecting clients to NetWare (using IPX) and to Windows NT (using IP) over ATM posed no trouble. The LANE code in the routers converted the ATM cloud into a virtual Ethernet network and set up the appropriate SVCs over the switch; our client/server session was instantly established.

The same feat with Microsoft networking using NETBIOS required a few tweaks. For starters, the Cisco LANE code does not support transparent bridging (NETBIOS, by design, cannot be routed). We were forced to abandon LANE and use an RFC 1483 encapsulation of bridging over a PVC (the only method for transparent bridging that was supported by the Cisco code). Setting up a PVC required configuration changes to both routers and the switch, which were made without taking the switch or router offline. While only a single PVC is required between any two Charm bracelet Ethernet LANs, this is an arduous task for a more complex network with a higher number of such connections.

Next, we attached the NetWare and NT servers directly to the ATM switch with Olicom 155 PCI adapters running Olicom USA, Inc.’s LANE drivers. Routing IP and IPX was, as before, handled flawlessly by LANE. However, the version of LANE code in the Cisco routers did not allow bridged NETBIOS to flow in this configuration.

Token-ring tribulations

Moving on to the first token-ring scenario, we placed our client and server on two separate token-ring LANs linked via the ATM backbone. Routing IP and IPX over the backbone went off without a hitch.

But when we attempted to bridge token-ring LANs via ATM, we hit a brick wall. Source route bridging, mandatory in token-ring environments, is not even an option here. As stated earlier, the emulated LAN appears as an Ethernet network. Since Ethernet does not support source routing, the issue of Tiffany Cushion Toggle bracelet route bridging becomes moot

MAJOR VENDORS ARE RUSHING to market with new switch products aimed at satisfying the growing need for higher bandwidth.

IBM Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., 3Com Corp. and Bay Networks Inc. are among the prominent players that have unveiled new equipment for switched networks in recent days.

“Switching ultimately is the only way to go,” said Bob Bellman, Tiffany Knots cuff of Brook Trail Research in Natick, Mass. “Shared media just can’t cope anymore.” Bellman gave an overall positive review of more than 20 new products and upgrades for 3Com’s LANplex and ONcore platforms.

“We want to drive home the difference between switching at the core and switching at the edge,” said Jeff Thermond, vice president of systems marketing for Santa Clara, Calif.-based 3Com. “Edge devices don’t handle the same level of traffic as core devices, obviously, so that provides an opportunity to get a better handle on cost.”

At the boundary, 3Com has unveiled five new ONcore FastModule switches that support store-and-forward as well as cutthrough switching for latency-sensitive applications. They also support virtual networking for up to 64 VLANs per system. Prices start at $275 per port.

At the core, nine new ASIC-based ONCore SwitchModules support high-density FDDI, Ethernet and Fast Ethernet with capability to support 256 separate VLANs within a given system.

3Com also is offering two new high-end LANplex 6000 FDDI and Fast Ethernet switching modules that take advantage of existing multigigabit High-Speed Interconnect (HSI) buses. New software Paloma’s Grown of Heart bangle plus a handful of management enhancements also are available.

Meanwhile, Bay Networks is making a full-court press on network management with its latest upgrade, Optivity Enterprise 7.0. The suite supports embedded RMON/RMON2 with the company’s multilayer topology system and its StackProbe stackable probe.

Features include Network Access, which displays network connections directly on the screen. Troubleshooting and network planning are simplified because users can see which ports and slots are involved in a particular connection.

The LANarchitect feature, meanwhile, simplifies virtual LAN configurations by consolidating multiple technologies into a single view. Adds, moves and changes can be accommodated in a point-and-click environment.

Optivity 7.0 is priced at $17,995 and supports HP’s OpenView Network Node Manager, Sun Microsystems Inc.’s SunNet Manager and IBM’s NetView 6000.

HP, Palo Alto, Calif., introduced a100BaseT switch and adapter plus “Return to Tiffany heart tag Charm and bracelet pack” bundles of its Fast Ethernet and 100VG AnyLAN products. “We are the only ones in the marketplace who can provide both 100Base-T and 100VG, giving the customer the opportunity to choose between the two or mix and match,” said Magdy Assem, HP product line manager.

However, some analysts suggest HP’s continued foray into Fast Ethernet is a means of hedging its bets on the long-term viability of 100VG.

“There’s Heart tag charm Toggle bracelet support for VG, but a much stronger pull for 100BaseT,” said Diane Myers, senior analyst at In-Stat of Scottsdale, Ariz. “HP’s VG products are very good and their numbers are still strong, but it’s hard to go it alone when there’s such heavy marketing support behind TX.” Myers predicts 100VG will ultimately establish itself as a niche.

HP’s Fast Ethernet AdvanceStack Switch 100 is an OpenViewmanaged workgroup switch providing 10 Mbps to the desktop and dedicated 100 Mbps to a server or backbone. Prices start at $3,399.

IBM’s networking hardware division, Research Triangle Park, N.C., meanwhile, has introduced new models of its 8271 Ethernet and 8272 Token Ring switch modules with an eye toward greater capacity.

“We’ve effectively doubled the number of base ports and expansion slots,” said Jim Kunkel, brand manager for ATM campus products at IBM. The 8271 now supports a total of 28 ports in the three-slot version (12 base ports), and the 8272 can accommodate 24 ports in its maximum configuration (eight base ports).

The expanded 8271 Nways Ethernet LAN switch model 216 will be available in July for $7,200 through two-tiered channel distribution. The new 8272 is shipping now and is priced at $9,995. Integrated modules for the 8260 multiprotocol switching hub will be available in October, with prices Pierced charm bracelet at $7,950 for Ethernet and $8,650 for Token Ring.

3Com Corp. last week rolled out a line of Ethernet and token-ring stackable workgroup switching hubs that boast sophisticated features typically found in chassisbased products.

The SuperStack II family, which builds on 3Com’s Tiffany 1837 bangle SuperStack gear, provides customers with port switching, graphics-based network management, hot-swappable components and uninterrupted power supplies.

3Com’s stackable products have proven popular in branch offices, but the company is aiming higher with the new line, according to Tam Dell’Oro, principal of the Dell’Oro Group, a consultancy in Menlo Park, Calif.

“3Com was hoping to get into more headquarters facilities with the Chipcom chassis customer base, and I don’t think that has panned out,” she said. “So they are trying to get into headquarters with a high-end stack. And that just might work.”

3Com was the worldwide market leader in stackable hubs and switches in the first quarter with 26% of the 6.8 million ports shipped. Bay Networks, Inc. followed closely with 22% and Hewlett-Packard Co. captured 15% of the market, according to the Dell’Oro Group.

3Com will look to its new SuperStack II Port Switch Hub to help build its lead. The switching hub, which comes in 12- and 24port versions, allows users to switch individual ports between one of four repeater segments. This allows customers to ease net congestion without having to go to full-blown switching.

The switching hubs - which can be stacked up to 10 units high - also include Simple Network Management Protocol and Remote Monitoring (RMON) support.

For token-ring Elsa Peretti Double Open Heart bangle, 3Com rolled out its SuperStack II Switch 2000. The 12-port token-ring switch provides anoptional slot for high-speed technologies such as FDDI and Asynchronous Transfer Mode.

All of the new SuperStack II products provide increased reliability over 3Com’s existing stackable gear with new features like a hot-swappable cascading unit, which allows units to be removed or added without bringing down the network, and uninterruptible power supplies that maintain the safe operation of network equipment during power surges or blackouts.

3Com also made some related announcements on the management side. The company unveiled its Transcend SuperStack View, a graphical application that presents net managers with a view of all devices in an Ethernet or Fast Ethernet SuperStack II environment.At Comdex/Spring ‘96 here last week, IBM announced new Internet connectivity, Lotus Notes capabilities and improved support for Windows - all this in an effort to make it easier for users to deploy the box in enterprise client/server environments.

The new features center on the AS/400’s operating system, OS/400 Version 3 Release 2. For example, the Internet Connection for AS/400 transforms AS/400 into a Web server, and the AS/400 Lotus Notes feature lets workgroup users communicate and collaborate on business projects.

Lotus Notes will reside under OS/2 on the AS/400’s Integrated PC Server, also known as the File Server I/O Processor (FSIOP) .

“With this announcement, 400,000 AS/400 systems are transformed into Web servers and more than 28,000 applications can be Internet-Tiffany Somerset Bangle,” said Gary Cohen, vice president of marketing and sales for IBM’s Internet Division.

OS/400 will now also support the TCP/IP SLIP, which provides native TCP/IP connectivity to the Internet over inexpensive telephone lines rather than via LANattached routers and gateway servers. In addition, the operating system supports the Internet Post Office Protocol 3, letting the box deliver electronic correspondence to OS/2, Unix, Windows and Macintosh clients.

OS/400 3.2 will be available this month. Pricing was not available.

IBM used the Elsa Peretti Open center cuff show to unveil a variety of other products including:

An AS/400 Wireless LAN Token Ring Access Point product equipped with a 2.4-GHz radio to allow wireless communications between Token Ring devices on AS/400-based nets.

The 8235 Dial in Access to LANs, a remote access product for Token Ring and Ethernet LAN users. The 8232 Ethernet and Token Ring models come with two ports each and can handle more than 100 simultaneous calls from remote dial-in users.

Both models will be available this month with prices starting at $1,899.

An agreement between IBM, Apple Computer, Inc. and Andrew Corp. to codevelop products to integrate Macintosh clients into AS/400 networks.

A promotional program that could save users more than $1,000 when buying bundled OS/2 and Lotus Notes packages. For example, if customers buy Lotus Tiffany 1837 bangle 4.1 with OS/2 Warp Server, they will receive 10 Notes licenses, 10 Warp Server access licenses and IBM Internet Connection Server for free.