SANTA CLARA, Calif., Sept. 18, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- Foundry Networks(r), Inc. (Nasdaq:FDRY), a performance and total solutions leader for end-to-end switching and routing, today announced a new family of entry-level ServerIron application and content management switches with an integrated Web firewall security suite to meet the demand for secure and optimized delivery of growing Web and triple-play services in small- and mid-sized enterprise data centers. Offered at the industry's best entry price, the ServerIron 4G features an integrated purpose-built Web Firewall to protect Web-enabled enterprise applications against increasing application-intelligent attacks that may cause service disruption and compromise sensitive information and data. The ServerIron 4G family packs powerful application switching, content management and security features in a resilient switch to deliver uncompromising application benefits previously only available to large enterprise and service provider organizations.
A photo accompanying this release is available at http://www.primezone.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=2863
According to a recent research report by Gartner, revenue for application delivery solutions is growing and increased by 5.5% in the second quarter of 2006 alone. As IP applications become the business foundation for most organizations, including smaller enterprise, e-commerce and service providers, there is a growing demand for cost-effective application acceleration and security solutions to maintain always-on services with optimized performance in the data center. With the purpose-built features of the ServerIron 4G switch family, businesses will see an immediate improvement in the performance and uptime of their critical applications like Oracle, BEA, IBM Websphere, Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Live Communication Server (LCS).
"For many enterprises, application switching is no longer a nice-to-have technology but a must-have tool," said Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst for Infonetics Research, Inc. "But as the feature requirements for application switching products increase, enterprises are faced with the perennial challenge of controlling costs. Foundry's latest ServerIron product addresses this challenge by offering a solution that is feature-rich and affordable."
Foundry's ServerIron 4G family delivers performance acceleration, high availability and security for a broad range of applications critical to business operations, including e-mail, Web, DNS, and Voice over IP (VoIP). The solution also features many custom features for Web-based applications, including hardware-based SSL acceleration, bandwidth optimization using http compression, server connection offload with http connection pooling, and Web firewall security to protect against emerging attacks that impact service uptime and compromise of sensitive information. Additionally, the ServerIron 4G family of switches enables geographic distribution and business continuity for critical services. Integration of these crucial capabilities into the TrafficWorksTM OS architecture, including the consolidation of Web firewall functions, simplifies data center infrastructure, delivers better return on investment (ROI), and eliminates the need to purchase costly additional appliances that are limited to one function and tedious to manage.
"As IP- and Web-based applications have become critical drivers for businesses, application switching technology has been widely adopted by many large organizations to increase availability and performance of these applications," said Gopala Tumuluri, director of product marketing for Foundry Networks. "However, cost, complexity and appliance proliferation to achieve different benefits has created a barrier for most organizations with small-scale applications and data centers. The new ServerIron 4G switch family eliminates these barriers by integrating advanced application delivery features into a resilient hardware switch design at the industry's most attractive price."
The new family consists of two switches -- ServerIron 4G and 4G-SSL -- that leverage the same purpose-built architecture of high-end ServerIron switches, and are offered at an affordable entry price. The ServerIron 4G-SSL switch features integrated hardware Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) acceleration to increase the performance of secure Web transactions in enterprise and e-commerce environments by offloading SSL processing from servers and centralizing SSL certificate management. The ServerIron 4G switch is ideally suited to deliver high-performance, availability and security to non-Web IP applications, and where entry price is a key consideration. The ServerIron 4G family delivers many unique features not available in the entry class market , including support for redundant and hot swappable AC and DC power supplies, integrated solution for multi-site redundancy and disaster recovery, and server farm security with wire-speed Gigabit rate Denial of Service (DoS/DDoS) attack protection.
Foundry's ServerIron application switches provide sophisticated Internet traffic and content management features including server load balancing, web acceleration and optimization, GSLB, and transparent cache switching. Some of the world's most demanding customers, such as AOL, NTT DoCoMo, and Wachovia Bank rely on Foundry ServerIron systems for server farm scalability and application security.
Please visit Foundry Networks' booth #321 at Interop New York in the Jacob Javits Center Tuesday, September 19 through Thursday, September 21 for more information.
Pricing and Availability
The following two 4-port gigabit (copper & fiber combo) switches are available starting in October 2006:
-- ServerIron 4G: $11,995 (US List Price)
-- ServerIron 4G-SSL: $14,995 (US List Price) -- Integrated Hardware
SSL
Web Firewall and http compression features are available in December 2006 as a no cost TrafficWorks upgrade.
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 Web switches, Wireless LAN and access points, and Metro Routers. Foundry's 10,000 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.foundrynetworks.com.
The Foundry Networks, Inc. logo is available at http://www.primezone.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=2756
Foundry Networks, ServerIron and the "Iron" family of marks are trademarks of Foundry Networks, Inc. All other trademarks are the sole property of their respective holders.
Photo is also available at NewsCom, www.newscom.com, and via AP PhotoExpress.
