News for and about the Internet2 community

["Lauren B. Kallens" <>]

Internet2 Partners With Force10 Networks For National Deployment Examining
High Performance Optical And Packet Architectures 

ANN ARBOR, MI, February 15, 2005 - Internet2 today announced that it has
partnered with Force10 Networks, a pioneer in Gigabit and 10 Gigabit
Ethernet networking, to deploy its switch/routers for the Internet2 Hybrid
Optical and Packet Infrastructure (HOPI) project, which will serve as a
model for tomorrow's high performance network architectures.  Internet2 is
building a national hybrid packet and optical network testbed to examine the
requirements and performance of scalable next generation networks that
combine the best of packet and optical technologies.

 "Internet2's partnership with Force10 Networks, is a critical step in
moving the HOPI initiative forward," said Rick Summerhill, Internet2's
director of network research, architecture and technologies and HOPI Design
Team co-chairperson.  "The Force10 equipment as well as their technical
expertise will play a significant role in providing the network capacity and
dynamic provisioning we need to successfully create and experiment with a
hybrid network."

In the near future, as bandwidth-intensive applications and resources become
more prevalent, the Internet2 community will require greater bandwidth than
is available on its nationwide 10 Gigabit per-second (Gbps) Abilene backbone
today.  Internet2 initiated the HOPI project as a part of its mission to
design, develop, and deploy advanced networking capabilities that meet the
emerging needs of the research and education community while leveraging its
existing network assets. 

The nationwide HOPI testbed will serve as a foundation for cutting-edge
network experimentation and a model for the next-generation of Internet2's
existing high performance packet-based Abilene network.  The HOPI testbed
will utilize facilities from the Abilene Network, the National LambdaRail
(NLR) infrastructure, the MAN LAN exchange point, and several regional
optical networks. 

Over the next three months, Force10 equipment will be deployed at the HOPI
nodes located in Seattle, Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, and
Washington D.C. The Force10 E-Series will provide dense Gigabit Ethernet
connectivity with 10 Gigabit Ethernet uplinks to Abilene and NLR. This
national infrastructure testbed design will allow researchers and scientists
from around the world to participate and experiment with new networking
technologies such as dynamically provisioned bandwidth, circuit switched
environments, and new transport protocols.   

"To model future network architectures, it is necessary to utilize the most
advanced tools available today, and the unmatched density, scalability and
resiliency of E-Series make it an ideal choice for the hybrid packet and
circuit switched national infrastructure testbed the Internet2 community is
building," said Sachi Sambandan, Force10's vice president of engineering.
"Through this partnership, we will work hand in hand with the Internet2
community to study and develop these architectures today, enabling us to
offer research and education environments as well as enterprises insight
into building scalable networks for tomorrow."

Over the last two years, Force10 has significantly increased its presence in
research and national laboratory environments, including the National Center
for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), the California Institute of
Technology, the San Diego Supercomputer Center, Argonne National Laboratory
and the Cornell Theory Center.  

About Internet2(R)
Led by more than 200 U.S. universities working with industry and government,
Internet2 develops and deploys advanced network applications and
technologies for research and higher education, accelerating the creation of
tomorrow's Internet.  Internet2 recreates the partnerships among academia,
industry, and government that helped foster today's Internet in its infancy.
For more information, visit: www.internet2.edu. 

About Force10 Networks
Force10 Networks is the pioneer in high performance switching and routing.
Based on a revolutionary system architecture that delivers best-in-class
resiliency and massive scalability, Force10's TeraScale E-Series
switch/routers ensure predictable application performance, increase network
availability, and reduce operating costs.  Today, many of the world's
largest Gigabit Ethernet and 10 Gigabit Ethernet networks depend on Force10
Networks.  For additional information, please visit the company's website at
www.force10networks.com.

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Contact:
Lauren Kallens
Internet2