San Jose, California-headquarterd Cisco Systems Inc has announced a deal with ZeitNet Inc, based in Santa Clara, under which it is to market the latter’s Asynchronous Transfer Mode adaptors. Cisco claims that the agreement will result in it being able to provide an end-to-end Asynchronous Mode offering, from enterprise switches down to the desktop. The terms of the agreement were not released. Initial products available through the deal are two SBus Asynchronous Mode adaptors, which are said to run in Sun Microsystems Inc Sparcstations, Sparcservers and compatibles. Both operate at 155Mbps Sonet or Synchronous Digital Hierarchy speed, one over multimode fibre cable, the other over unshielded twisted pair-5 copper, and are Simple Network Management Protocol-manageable through the CiscoWorks suite of management applications, says the company. The units are said to support ATM Forum signalling specifications and incorporate an AAL-5 integrated circuit for Segmentation & Reassembly and Direct Memory Access, says the firm. Future releases will also support the LAN Emulation and Multiprotocol Over Asynchronous Transfer Mode specifications being developed by the Forum, according to Cisco. Available next quarter, the multimode adaptor will list for $1,200, with the unshielded twisted pair-5 variant coming in at $1,000. In addition, Asynchronous Mode adaptors that work with Peripheral Component Interconnect bus-based personal computers running Windows NT and NetWare will ship during the fourth quarter, but there are no prices yet. Cisco has also revealed a programme under which it will partner with other Asynchronous Mode adaptor vendors to test their products for interoperability with Cisco Asynchronous Mode equipment, exchange technical and product information, and co-operate in addressing customer problems.
