Cisco Systems Commitment to Internet2 Totals $15 million
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. -- September 28, 1998 -- Cisco Systems, Inc., announced today its continued support of the Internet2 and Abilene projects at the Internet2 Members Meeting taking place in San Francisco this week. Cisco Systems also announced plans to continue its support of the National Science Foundation (NSF) High Performance Connections (HPC) program. Cisco will be providing supplemental equipment grants, benefiting an additional 36 universities connecting to high speed backbone networks, such as the very high-performance backbone network service (vBNS) and Abilene. Cisco's latest commitment to this specific program totals $3.6 million. The Internet2 project, under the direction of the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID), is a partnership of higher education, government and information technology industry leaders with the combined goal of accelerating advanced computer networks. Cisco, the initial corporate partner of the Internet2 project, has committed more than $15 million, including grants to the recent NSF awardees, and has provided dedicated management and engineering resources to the initiative. "Cisco's commitment to Internet2 these past two years has extended well beyond its financial commitment," said Douglas Van Houweling, CEO and president of UCAID, home of the Internet2 project. "Cisco has also taken a leadership role in providing administrative and engineering resources in support of Internet2 goals, to develop leading-edge network capabilities, resulting in a new family of advanced applications to meet the emerging needs of the academic and research communities." In addition to supporting the vBNS, which connects many Internet2 universities, Cisco has also committed major resources to the development of Abilene, a project driven by UCAID, with Nortel and Qwest. The goal of the Abilene project is to develop an advanced backbone network to connect regional network aggregation points, called gigaPoPs, being implemented by Internet2 universities. "Cisco welcomes the opportunity to collaborate with the nation's leading research institutions in the Internet2 and Abilene projects," commented Dr. Stephen Wolff, executive director of Cisco's Advanced Internet Initiatives Division. "Cisco's products will benefit from servicing the fiercely demanding and cutting-edge applications of the research and education community." Cisco Systems' Advanced Internet Initiatives (AII) division reporting to Cisco's Chief Technology Office, is dedicated to providing a leadership role in accelerating research, development and deployment of next-stage Internet initiatives worldwide. In addition to the Internet2 and Abilene projects, AII also supports a number of U.S. and international advanced Internet initiatives.
