Santa Clara, California-headquartered 3Com Corp has unveiled its SuperStack system, claimed as the industry’s first fault-tolerant stackable system architecture for the workgroup and remote office. The system products themselves include new hubs, three new members of the NetBuilder Remote Office family of boundary and access routers, an SDLC converter and a stackable Ethernet/FDDI local network switch. The new LinkBuilder FMS II Ethernet stackable hub, available in 12- or 24-port configurations, features an optional slide-in bridge module to deliver improved performance and manageability by segmenting local networks, says the company. There is also an additional slide-in management module, which is said to enable users to install the company’s management application, Transcend WorkGroup Manager, to manage hubs and EtherLink adaptors in the Workgroup SuperStack System. The enhanced LinkBuilder FMS Token Ring hub features port and media flexibility, plug-in management and RMON-based network management, says 3Com. The new members of the NetBuilder range, first announced last January comprise Remote Office 221, featuring Boundary Routing system architecture, Point-to-Point Protocol, Frame Relay and X.25 communications for remote offices that require a single wide area network link (plus a back-up link); the Remote Office 222 Ethernet access router, supporting local IP and IPX routing; and the Remote Office 227, said to support all protocols over X25, Frame Relay, Switched Multi-Megabit Data Services and Point-to-Point Protocol wide area network services. Through a joint product development with Irvine, California-based company Sync Research Inc, 3Com will also deliver an SDLC converter to integrate local network and Systems Network Architecture traffic. On the Ethernet switching side, 3Com says users can add the LinkSwitch Ethernet/FDDI stackable local network switch to any SuperStack system for increased bandwidth and high-speed connections. Using the technology introduced earlier this year for the LinkBuilder MSH chassis hub, the company claims that LinkSwitch provides floor-based switching for up to six Ethernet local networks. Future SuperStack hub offerings will support high-speed technologies including 100Mbps Fast Ethernet and Asynchronous Transfer Mode, says 3Com. The hubs and routers will ship this quarter, with the other offerings following next quarter; pricing details to be announced.
