SANTA CLARA, Calif. and AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands, Dec. 4, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Foundry Networks(r), Inc. (Nasdaq:FDRY), a performance and total solutions leader for end-to-end switching and routing, today announced that the world's largest public Internet Exchange Point (IXP), the Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX), selected the NetIron(r) MLX-32 metro routers for their powerful switching capabilities to keep up with the organization's documented 100 percent year-over-year Internet Protocol (IP) traffic growth. With the surging growth of Internet traffic pushing overall used capacity through the 350 Gbps threshold at the end of October, AMS-IX required the most powerful switching platform available to provide their multifaceted infrastructure with long-term scalability, simplified network management, high reliability, and protection for their long-term equipment investment.
A photo accompanying this release is available at http://www.primenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=4500
Currently setting the record for the greatest volume of traffic for any IXP, AMS-IX connects IP networks for more than 280 Internet service providers and carriers through more than 475 ports on one distributed switch platform. A pioneer in applying ultra-high capacity networking, the Exchange's exponential growth rates require increasingly higher switching capacity to support the increasing trend of high bandwidth applications like online video, competitive online gaming and streaming audio services. Their customers' current 10 gigabit port demands have increased at a rate that has outpaced AMS-IX's most optimistic expectations. A number of AMS-IX's customers will soon require more than eight parallel 10 gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) connections to the exchange for handing network traffic to their peers.
"As we look to solve the growing demand for higher speed connections and to service our members beyond the 300 Gbps milestone, we will continue to look towards Foundry Networks to answer our networking performance needs," said Henk Steenman, chief technical officer for AMS-IX. "For years, Foundry has consistently delivered highly reliable and scalable networking solutions at an attractive price for performance. Their innovative ability to execute as promised, has enabled us to architect an extremely robust, technically advanced and high performing Internet Exchange Point."
AMS-IX chief executive officer, Job Witteman, indicated that the future in Internet usage growth will continue to bring new capacity demands. "With high-definition video transfers and other high bandwidth applications growing in popularity with consumers via the Internet, it will likely keep our growth in the 100 percent range year-over-year. I see no reason to believe that capacity growth will be any slower than what we've experienced in the past, meaning we could be running close to an unparalleled terabit per second by the end of 2008."
Witteman continued, "Another development that influences the traffic growth is the maturation of children of the digital generation. As they embark in their professional careers, they are already accustomed to being online all the time, especially with the new Web 2.0 applications. We will potentially see traffic patterns shift to higher volumes, thus defining more critical infrastructure needs."
Foundry Networks enabled AMS-IX to manage steady bandwidth growth at the Exchange since its inception ten years ago. To manage the bandwidth increase at the core of their network, AMS-IX deployed the NetIron MLX-32 metro routing and switching platform to addressing the needs of capacity intensive L2/IPv4/IPv6 networks offering a massive 3.2 terabits per second (Tbps) data capacity. Scaling to an unparalleled 128 10GbE ports and up to 16x10GbE link aggregates or interswitch links at a maximum capacity of 160 Gbps. It radically boosts per core-link headroom as well as overall network capacity for accommodating the current Internet growth trends and growing the subscriber base. Apart from the switching features AMS-IX utilizes, the NetIron MLX-32 delivers a powerful suite of advanced routing, and MPLS services to address a wide range of applications. It also features innovative packet scheduling and quality of service (QoS) up to 500,000 queues per system for supporting converged services. Combined with its state-of-the-art hardware resiliency and hitless software failover and upgrade capabilities, it will offer AMS-IX the ideal vehicle for powering their rapid growth and expanding their broad peering service portfolio that already includes voice over IP (VoIP) peering, global GPRS roaming exchange, mobile data exchange and multicast peering.
"AMS-IX has always been a leader in applying new technologies for building and enhancing their state-of-the-art distributed Internet Exchange," said Ahmed Abdelhalim, director of product management and marketing for Foundry's High-End and Service Provider Systems Business Unit. "As the Internet continues its fast-paced growth, and as AMS-IX continues to increase their innovative, distributed, high availability service portfolio, we're pleased to see them adopt the NetIron MLX-32 to support these exciting trends."
About the Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX)
AMS-IX (Amsterdam Internet Exchange) is a neutral and independent not-for-profit Internet exchange providing services since the early 1990's. AMS-IX is one of the world's largest Internet hubs, where more than 270 Internet-related parties come together to exchange Internet traffic with one another. Current traffic levels exceed at more than 300 Gigabits per second. The AMS-IX platform provides high quality, non-blocking professional peering services for all types of IP traffic from traditional data to video and VoIP. AMS-IX also hosts the world's first mobile peering points -- the Global GPRS Roaming Exchange (GRX) and the Mobile Data Exchange (MDX) -- as well as solutions for broadcast traffic through its multicast peering service. For more information, visit http://www.ams-ix.net.
About Foundry Networks
Foundry Networks, Inc. (Nasdaq:FDRY) is a leading provider of high-performance enterprise and service provider switching, routing, security and Web traffic management solutions, including Layer 2/3 LAN switches, Layer 3 Backbone switches, Layer 4-7 application switches, wireless LAN and access points, metro and core routers. Foundry's customers include the world's premier ISPs, metro service providers, and enterprises, including e-commerce sites, universities, entertainment, health and wellness, government, financial and manufacturing companies. For more information about the company and its products, call 1.888.TURBOLAN or visit www.foundrynet.com.
The Foundry Networks, Inc. logo is available at http://www.primenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=2756
Safe Harbor Statement
The foregoing may contain "forward-looking statements" which are based on management's current information and beliefs as well as on a number of assumptions concerning future events made by management. These forward-looking statements include, without limitation, statements by executives or product management spokespeople regarding Foundry's positioning and potential plans. The forward-looking statements in this press release are only predictions and are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially. Foundry assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking statements contained in this press release. Furthermore, no statements made by Foundry Networks, Inc. ("Foundry") in this press release, or information contained herein, may be deemed to constitute either an amendment of an existing agreement or an implied new commitment, promise or legal obligation by Foundry to develop or deliver any specific product, feature or functionality.
The photo is also available at Newscom, www.newscom.com, and via AP PhotoExpress.
