Extreme Networks Inc, a Cupertino, California-based start up founded less than one year ago, has launched its first products, a series of Gigabit Ethernet local area network switches. The Summit Switch family includes two models for Gigabit Ethernet backbone implementations and interconnection with existing Fast Ethernet switches. The systems use Extreme’s 17.5 gigabit non- blocking switch fabric based on its own Summit chip set, and provide standards-based layer 2 switching and layer 3 routing, both at wire speeds, which in a gigabit network translates to 1.48 million packets per second. The implementation gets around the usual latency and slow network performance associated with layer 3 routing, says Extreme, and enables the switches to be integrated with legacy routers in large mesh topology networks. An ExtremeWare software suite provides standards-based bandwidth reservation, multicast routing and management, and virtual local area network capabilities, and implements a full policy-based Quality of Service management system. The Summit 1 switch has a 17.5 gigabit backplane and eight full-duplex switched Ethernet ports and costs $25,000. Summit 2 has an 8.5 gigabit backplane, two Gigabit Ethernet ports and sixteen 10/100 Ethernet ports, and costs $15,000. Extreme, founded in May last year by Gordon Still, Herb Schneider and Stephen Haddock, all refugees from Network Peripherals Inc, received its first $5m round of venture funding the following month. In October, the company acquired Agoura Hills, California-based Mammoth Technology Inc on undisclosed terms for its Ethernet MAC Media Access Control integrated circuit technology, which it says gave it a jump-start in getting its products to market. The MAC interface controls communication over an Ethernet link, and is part of the emerging Gigabit Ethernet standard. Extreme said it wanted to own its MAC implementation rather than license it from a third party, and claims that as a result it can produce lower cost 100 Mbps and Gigabit Ethernet switching products. It may itself license the technology to selected strategic partners.
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