SANTA CLARA, Calif. and ST. LOUIS, Aug. 13, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Foundry Networks(r), Inc. (Nasdaq:FDRY), a performance and total solutions leader for end-to-end switching and routing, today announced that GameRail installed Foundry Networks' NetIron(r) XMR 4000 multi-service backbone routers to power North America's only high performance and low latency private online gaming network targeting serious members of the Web gaming community. Leveraging the NetIron XMR's performance and robust MultiProtocol Label Switching (MPLS) capabilities, GameRail is able to offer an affordable paid subscription service that offers fewer routing hops, increased response times and considerably lower latency to gamers than those using the public Internet exclusively.
According to DFC Intelligence, the online game market is expected to grow to $13 billion by 2012 and the total overall number of online gamers in the 20 leading online gaming countries is expected to increase 51 percent from 2006 to 2012, making the need for a high performance gaming network imminent. GameRail turned to Foundry Networks and their highly reliable NetIron XMR multi-service backbone routers to power their core network performance. Deploying eight NetIron XMR 4000 routers throughout their network, GameRail used their robust performance and extensive MPLS capabilities to provide superior response and latency times to their online clients. By utilizing the NetIron XMR's MPLS features, the GameRail network benefits from simplified packet forwarding, traffic engineering, network scalability, Quality of Service (QoS), and Differentiated Services.
Consequently, GameRail's customers minimize using the public Internet and its inherent bottlenecks; instead their delay-sensitive traffic is transmitted over a network path with minimal hops, lower congestion and controlled by cold-potato routing, which results in lower latency, less jitter, and minimal packet loss. Using GameRail's network, online gaming customers have seen their average latency rates reduced by 30 percent and local latency reductions by over 75 percent versus players using the public Internet. These significant reductions in latency and increased response appeal to players who engage in bandwidth demanding online action and quest games with multi-players that require lightning quick responses.
"GameRail is focused on improving the performance of online gaming by developing a high performance network for serious online gamers," said John Alden, vice president of Business Development for GameRail. "We chose Foundry's NetIron XMR multi-service backbone routers to power our network because they offered us unmatched performance, reliability and scalability with the advantages of MPLS -- which is crucial to maximize the experience of our serious gaming clientele and to the success and future expansion of our growing network."
Dedicated to building a private Internet bypass network for online gaming, GameRail, is connecting over 34 million homes in the continental United States, Alaska and Canada through partnerships with the top national and regional providers of DSL and cable broadband such as AT&T, Bell Canada, Cablevision, Cox Communications, Earthlink, and XO Communications. Based in St. Louis, the company has expanded in phase one of their rollout to eight of the United States' largest markets: Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, St. Louis and Seattle. In phase two, GameRail expects to have an additional 17 cities linked into the existing network.
"We are pleased that GameRail selected to power their growing online gaming network with Foundry's NetIron XMR multi-service backbone routers," said Ahmed Abdelhalim, director for Foundry's High-End Systems Business Unit. "Online gaming enthusiasts demand exceptional network performance for that competitive edge and GameRail, with Foundry routers, is able to provide those features by utilizing their extensive and growing online gaming network to deliver these benefits."
Foundry Networks' NetIron XMR multi-service backbone routers address the most critical service provider requirements in a cost-effective way. The backbone solution provide a way for seamless migration, be it from IPv4, IPv6, legacy and Ethernet networks. The port density and high performance offered by the router is industry leading and is a clear indication of advanced innovative engineering design. Foundry Networks has been able to provide service providers extensive feature sets with attributes like redundant switch fabric, terabit-scale architecture, wire-speed dual stack IPv4/IPv6 routing, high scalability, compliance with various IEEE and other demanding standards. Foundry has ensured that service providers are able to receive the best performance and comprehensive set of features that will enable future-proofing deployments in a cost-effective and highly dense form factor.
The NetIron XMR Series of backbone routers comprises four form factors: four, eight, 16- and 32-slot platforms with support for MPLS, IPv4 and IPv6 on all models. The NetIron XMR delivers up to 3.2 terabits per second (Tbps) data capacity and approximately two billion packets per second (Bpps) routing performance per system. On a per system basis, the NetIron XMR provides up to 128 10-GbE / 640 1-GbE / 64 OC-192 / 256 OC-48 ports. Foundry Networks has designed the NetIron XMR Series from the ground up to support high performance and scalability and can provide wire-speed, low latency, and ultra-low jitter routing for IPv4, IPv6, MPLS, and MPLS VPN services. The port-density offered by the NetIron XMR backbone router offers service providers remarkable scalability, providing unparalleled investment protection for their growing networks.
About GameRail
Progression LLC, a Missouri LLC, dba GameRail, (www.gamerail.com) is a facilities-based Content Delivery Network Operator that is dedicated to delivering superior performance to the online gaming community. GameRail directly connects game players with broadband to their favorite game hosts and vice versa, thereby eliminating game play degrading high latency hops on the Internet. GameRail has interconnection facilities in the top eight major U.S. markets including Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, St. Louis and Seattle.
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 application switches, wireless LAN and access points, access routers and metro routers. Foundry's 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.foundrynet.com.
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