National Semiconductor Corp, of Santa Clara and Albuquerque, New Mexico-based Epilogue Technology Corp have signed a partnership deal with the aim of developing a hardware-based Remote Network Monitoring offering for the Fast Ethernet repeater market. The system will be based on Epilogue’s Ambassador Plus RMON source code products and NatSemi’s 100/100Mbps family of Fast Ethernet chips, including the 10/100Mbps DP83340 TX PHY 100Base-T chip, the DP83223 100Mbps transceiver chip and the DP83850 repeater interface controller and DP83856 repeater information base chips. NatSemi claims its distributed silicon architecture will provide the hardware hooks that will work with Epilogue’s distributed RMON management software to accelerate RMON performance to the point where it makes RMON management applications practical for 100Mbps networks. By implementing low-level processing in the chip set, say the firms, OEM customers will be able to develop faster, more efficient RMON offerings for Fast Ethernet repeaters by combining the NatSemi chips with Epilogue’s source code products. Furthermore, they say, Epilogue’s network management software will help to cut their engineering costs.
