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Force10 Networks Awarded Patent for Innovations in Cost-Effective Design of High Performance Backplanes
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
San Jose, CA -- Force10 Networks®, the pioneer in building and securing reliable networks, today announced that it has received a patent for innovations in design that reduce the complexity and cost of high performance backplanes for switches and routers targeted at the midsized data center and enterprise markets. With this 21st patent for the company, Force10 is cost effectively bringing the backplane reliability and scalability advances developed for the TeraScale E-Series® family of switch/routers to the C-Series family of resilient switches.
"As the need for greater reliability extends from the data center to the enterprise LAN, system-level innovations are required to ensure that reliable high performance technology can cost effectively be introduced to smaller environments," said Joel Goergen, chief scientist and vice president of technology at Force10 Networks. "With this patent, Force10 is extending the backplane advances developed for the TeraScale E-Series to the C-Series, enabling a diverse group of organizations to utilize their networks as a strategic asset."
Force10 pioneered high performance backplanes with the E1200 switch/router, designing a passive copper backplane with capacity of up to five Terabits per second. The support for a large number of line card connection slots, multiple signaling layers and high capacity traces to ensure backplane throughput at high densities, however, often delivers more capacity than most switches and routers require. By increasing signaling efficiency between the backplane layers, Force10 is reducing the complexity of the backplane and associated costs to bring the same high reliability and fabrication techniques patented for the TeraScale E-Series to systems with lower total throughput such as the C-Series.
The patented passive copper backplanes of the Force10 E-Series and C-Series both increase reliability by eliminating a single point of failure and reduce power consumption at the system-level. Comprised of innovations in signaling, design and fabrication, the backplane provides the scalable foundation that can support high throughput on Force10’s chassis-based switch/routers. This scalability also helps customers protect the investment in their infrastructure by extending the usable life of the products.
The Force10 Reliable Networking product portfolio delivers the high availability, scalability and network control required to build flexible, application-ready networks. With this flexibility built into the foundation, networks can readily adapt to changing business requirements.
About Force10 Networks
Force10 Networks is the pioneer in building and securing reliable, high performance networks. With its no compromise approach to networking and advances in high density Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet switching, routing and security, Force10 delivers the innovative technologies that allow customers to transform their networks into strategic assets at the lowest total cost of ownership. For additional information, please visit www.force10networks.com.
Force10 Networks and E-Series are registered trademarks, and C-Series, P-Series, S-Series, TeraScale and FTOS are trademarks of Force10 Networks, Inc. All other company names are trademarks of their respective holders.
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