Written in 1996
by Frank Barbetta
The new access and switching products introduced last month by Cascade Communications (Westford, MA) and Ascend Communications (Alameda, CA) share several general characteristics: First, the target markets for both are carriers, Internet service providers (ISPs) and large enterprise networks; second, the new equipment comes with smaller footprints, more redundancy and greater distributed intelligence; third, both companies are intent on beating or displacing Cisco Systems (San Jose).
The new systems - access devices from Cascade and Ascend and an IP switch/router from Ascend use RISC-based architectures and other processors that are tightly packaged to reduce total size and production cost, and thus the price tag to the ultimate buyer. The vendors also claim that these new packages result in better reliability and price/performance for a variety of tasks - processing, system control, modem communications, switching, throughput and routing......
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Approximate Word Count: 1626
Approximate Pages: 7 (260 words per double-spaced page) |