New Communication Products
3Com Corp. of Santa Clara, Calif., has released its first fiber network interface cards for 10- and 100-Mbps Ethernet networks. The EtherLink and Fast EtherLink XL PCI fiber NICs provide desktop connectivity to networks over distances of up to two kilometers. The cards have parallel tasking to reduce CPU utilization by bursting full packets across the PCI bus.
3Com Corp. of Santa Clara, Calif., has released its first fiber network interface cards
for 10- and 100-Mbps Ethernet networks. The EtherLink and Fast EtherLink XL PCI fiber NICs
provide desktop connectivity to networks over distances of up to two kilometers.
The cards have parallel tasking to reduce CPU utilization by bursting full packets
across the PCI bus.
They will wake up remotely for administration and have dynamic-access software for
traffic prioritization. The cards incorporate distributed RMON SmartAgent software for
reporting network performance, plus FastIP software to reduce bottlenecks in high-traffic
IP networks.
The EtherLink NICs are $199 each, or $179 each for 20 or more. Fast EtherLink NICs
start at $299 each, or $279 each for 20 or more.
Contact 3Com at 800-638-3266.
TurboIron/8, a stackable Gigabit Ethernet switch for enterprise backbones, from Foundry
Networks Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., has 32-Gbps switching capacity and eight Gigabit
Ethernet ports.
TurboIron/8 claims nonblocking performance of 11.9 packets per second for Layer 2, 3
and 4 functions. It is available as a Layer 2 switch or as a multiprotocol router. Its
high-bandwidth, shared-memory fabric houses forwarding engines and application-specific
integrated circuits that perform high-speed Layer 2, 3 and 4 lookups. The TurboIron/8 can
support up to 32,000 media access control addresses and 230,000 IP routes.
The TurboIron/8 switch is priced at $9,995; the switching router version is $14,995.
Both come in 1000Base-SX and 1000Base-LX versions.
Contact Foundry Networks at 888-887-6526.
Magellan Corp. of Sunnyvale, Calif., which sells Ashtech geo-positioning products, is
making its Ashtech Evaluate 5.0 software available free on its Web site at
http://www.ashtech.com. User registration begins in September.
Magellan developed Evaluate 5.0 to test and control Global Positioning System
receivers. Its functions include receiver communications from a user terminal, data
logging, real-time accuracy analysis, playback and analysis of logged data, and printing.
It will work with GPS receivers that support RS-232 and National Marine Electronics
Association standards.
Contact Magellan at 909-394-7062.
D-Link Systems Inc. of Irvine, Calif., has released the Dual-Speed NWay auto-sensing
16-port Ethernet and Fast Ethernet hub with an integrated switch. The hubs segment
switch connects two segments running at different speeds and handles all the translation
and traffic flow. The hub, intended for small offices and workgroups, sells for $399, or
$25 per port.
Contact D-Link at 800-326-1688.
Three Nebula switching systems from Performance Technologies Inc. of Rochester, N.Y.,
have hot-swappable power supplies, port trunking and an embedded Hypertext Transfer
Protocol server for network management.
The family includes the Nebula 8000 Fault Tolerant Switch, a 100/1,000-Mbps enterprise
backbone switch with 32 ports equipped for virtual LANs, Layer 3 routing,
quality-of-service capability, security, filtering, high-speed WAN access and optional
full-duplex gigabit uplink ports. It will be available late this year at $28,995.
The Nebula 6000 High Density Switch, a 10/100/1,000-Mbps departmental switch with up to
64 ports, is suited for large campus environments. It comes configured as a 64-port,
10/100-Mbps twisted-pair hubbing switch; a 32-port twisted-pair switch with eight
full-duplex ports; or a 32-port twisted-pair switch with eight 100-Mbps fiber ports. List
price is $6,395.
The 16-port Nebula 4000 Advanced Workgroup Switch comes configured as a 16-port,
10/100-Mbps full-duplex, wire-speed twisted-pair switch; as an eight-port, 10/100-Mbps
full-duplex, twisted-pair switch with eight fiber ports; or as a 16-port, full-duplex
100-Mbps fiber switch. Its price is $4,595.
Contact PTI at 716-256-0200.