News | November 20, 2000

Milan Internet Exchange Selects Foundry's Gigabit Ethernet Switches

Source: Foundry Networks, Inc.
Foundry Networks, Inc.WORKS AND MILAN INTERNET EXCHANGE PARTNER TO PROVIDE THE LARGEST INTERNET EXCHANGE POINT IN ITALY

San Jose, Calif. - November 20, 2000 - <%=company%> (NASDAQ: FDRY) a leader in high-performance, end-to-end switching and routing solutions, announced today that Milan Internet Exchange (MIX) has chosen Foundry's Gigabit Ethernet solution for its core network in Milan, Italy.

MIX, who provides physical interconnection for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to exchange Internet traffic through peering agreements, handles over 500 Mbps of aggregated bandwidth during peak traffic. Roughly 60 operators are currently connected and there are more than 20 additional peering requests pending across the country and abroad. To manage this traffic, MIX has installed at its site in Milan a series of Foundry's BigIron 8000 high-performance Layer 3 Gigabit Ethernet switches. Delivering up to 120 Gigabit Ethernet ports and 178,000,000 packets per second (pps) non-blocking performance, Foundry's BigIron Layer 3 switches are 10 Gigabit capable so that as Internet traffic increases, with the introduction of Broadband access, MIX can provide the necessary scalability to meet future demands.

Internet traffic is exploding throughout Italy and the Foundry Layer 3 Gigabit Ethernet solution, with its wire-speed performance and non-blocking architecture, allows this traffic flow to be managed optimally. Delivering up to 256 Gbps of switching capacity, Foundry's BigIron 8000 8-slot modular chassis dramatically reduces performance bottlenecks with wire-speed IP routing. Foundry's Internet routers and Layer 3 switches are aimed specifically at satisfying the exploding bandwidth requirements encountered by growth-oriented infrastructure operators such as MIX.

"Our company, born from an informal grouping, is now fully structured and re-engineered. We foresee huge growth at an aggressive rate given the demand for Internet services. Thus, we need to work with network technology leaders who can guarantee the supply of the best technology and support we require," said Joy Marino, Chairman of the Board of MIX. "We evaluated a variety of proposals and chose Foundry as we believe that it is the best solution to ensure a smooth future growth."

"We are happy to be chosen yet again as the high-performance network infrastructure solutions supplier. To be the company that can meet the demanding needs of an organization, like MIX, is a challenge we are always prepared for," said Bobby Johnson president & CEO of Foundry Networks, Inc.works. "Through this agreement, Foundry has helped to achieve another milestone in the expansion of advanced Internet services for users across Europe."