LAS VEGAS - (Networld + Interop, Booth # 6859), May 6, 2002 - In its efforts to help companies achieve greater resilience for e-business applications and networks, Cisco Systems, Inc., the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet, today introduced a new generation of content services solutions. These solutions can create distributed content repositories throughout the network to mitigate the productivity impact of potential disruptions, while achieving new levels of security, scalability, availability and manageability for e-business networks and applications such as e-commerce and streaming video.

The new solutions include the Cisco CSS 11500 Series, and release 3.1 of the Content Switching Module (CSM) for both the Cisco Catalyst. 6500 family of switches and Cisco 7600 Series router. Cisco is also announcing software enhancements to the Cisco Content Transformation Engine (CTE), Cisco Application and Content Networking System (ACNS) and Cisco IP/TV for enterprise content delivery networks (ECDN), and Hosting Solution Engine (HSE) offerings.

"The content networking market will grow from $1.6 billion in 2001 to reach $7.4 billion in 2006, enabling availability, reliability and security in enterprise and service provider content delivery networks," said Lucinda Borovick, director at IDC. "As a leader in the market, and a portfolio of solutions including content switching, content services and wireless content transformation, Cisco is well positioned to take advantage of this market growth."

Next-Generation Content Switching Offerings

Enhancements within Cisco's content switching portfolio give customers a wider variety of choices ranging from stand-alone appliances to fixed-port and modular switches and an integrated content services module for Catalyst 6500 and Cisco 7600 customers.

Leading today's announcement are the Cisco CSS 11503 and CSS 11506 modular content switching platforms, based on a new distributed processing architecture, that offer significant increased performance per rack unit, the industry's only rules-based user session recovery services, and modularly-scalable integrated SSL acceleration that dramatically speeds secure Web transactions. The innovative architecture of Cisco CSS 11503 and CSS 11506 represents a significant advance in improving security, availability, and scalability of e-business sites/systems, distributed data center configurations, and dedicated hosting environments, while supporting new services in a reduced form factor for added management simplicity. Further, this new architecture offers affordable entry-level performance with "pay as you grow" performance scalability that is critical to meeting the stringent ROI requirements of enterprises today.

The Cisco Catalyst 6500 CSM 3.1 is an integrated service module for both the Catalyst 6500 and the Cisco 7600, adding Layer 4 through 7 content switching capabilities for any or all ports. With global server load balancing, the new release enables customers to optimize performance of distributed Websites while extending the value of existing Catalyst 6500-based Internet Data Center (IDC)/network infrastructures.

New Cisco CTE release

The Cisco CTE 1400 is an appliance-based solution to optimize delivery of enterprise Web content to a variety of wired and wireless user devices. Devices supported include Wireless Application Protocol cell phones, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), Research In Motion devices, and Cisco IP telephones. The CTE 1400 Release 2 enhancements include JavaScript support for increased content coverage, Web based network administration to allow management of appliances from anywhere on the network, performance monitoring including SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) and the delivery of graphic images to Cisco IP telephones.

Latest software releases for ECDNs

Cisco Application and Content Networking System (ACNS) software 4.1 provides integrated caching and content delivery services in a single system, supporting mission-critical intranets and extranets for eLearning, "live" and "on-demand" employee communications, Internet access and content acceleration. Customers benefit from the new release's industry-leading native streaming support for Microsoft WMT proxy/splitting/multicast and RealNetworks RealSystem Proxy and Server Subscriber v8, as well as Internet filtering capabilities "on box" with Secure Computing's SmartFilter or "off box" with N2H2's Sentian products or Websense Enterprise. Cisco ACNS software runs on Cisco's portfolio of enterprise content delivery products including Content Distribution Managers, Content Engines and Content Routers.

Another new ECDN software release is Cisco IP/TV 3.4, a turnkey system for delivering live, high-quality streaming to desktops, classrooms and meeting rooms using network-efficient multicast technology. Release 3.4 extends scalability and management control beyond 10,000 user desktops, supports high-resolution video at low-bit rates via the ISO MPEG-4 CODEC, and adds high resolution URL (Universal Resource Locator), video, audio and slide synchronization for enhanced video on demand viewing via IP/TV WebPresenter. Customers can take advantage of ISO MPEG-4 support to use IP/TV with emerging MPEG-4-compatible set top boxes and PDAs, as well as other streaming media players.

Reuters, the global information, news and technology group, is deploying both Cisco ACNS 4.1 and Cisco IP/TV 3.4 as part of the company's scalable video distribution and delivery network. This will support 13,000 desktops across the globe to ensure effective, corporate-wide employee communications. "We wanted to introduce streaming technology to our existing multicast system for 'live' staff participation in key events. We have a large and globally scattered employee base and the ability to pull the team together for important gatherings is an enormous plus," said Steve Clarke, Head of Internal Media at Reuters.

Content Services and Data Center Management Enhancements

A turnkey management solution for both enterprise and hosting provider Cisco-powered data centers, the Cisco 1105 HSE 1.4 enables multiple administrators to proactively manage and monitor content services provided by the Cisco CSS 11000 and Cisco CSS 11500 Series, Catalyst CSM and ECDN across the shared network infrastructure, for reliable e-business delivery. Enhancements such as robust Layer 4 through 7 service configuration and activation for server load balancing and personalized, Web-based historical data reports provide customers with improved operational efficiency and remote manageability.

"We have an extensive presence across Scandanavia - one of the most 'wired' regions in the world," explained Tom Soderholm, vice president, Network Department, at Danske Bank, the largest bank in Denmark. "Given the technical sophistication of our retail and institutional customers, we recognized the importance of comprehensive content management solutions that handle diverse traffic patterns across both our branch offices and data center sites over a geographically dispersed region. The Cisco 11500 platform and Cisco 1105 HSE 1.4 are flexible solutions that allow us to load balance traffic across locations and tier user access, roles and functions according to defined security profiles to protect the integrity of our business."

Cisco's Content Networking Portfolio

The modular solutions in Cisco's content networking portfolio integrate easily with existing IP networks, addressing a wide spectrum of enterprise needs to accelerate deployment of e-business applications including e-commerce, customer care, e-learning, workforce optimization, supply chain and TV-quality streaming media for communication with employees and partners.

Pricing, Projected Availability and Additional Information

Pricing and availability for Cisco's enterprise content networking solutions is detailed below. For additional information about Cisco's content networking solutions, go to http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/44/solutions/network/content_networking.shtml.

Product	Pricing	Availability
Cisco CSS 11503	Starts at $16,995 U.S.	Currently available
Cisco CSS 11506	Starts at $26,995 U.S.	Currently available
Catalyst 6500 CSM	Starts at $39,995 U.S.	Currently available
Cisco 1105 HSE 1.4	Starts at $19,999 U.S.	Currently available
Cisco ACNS 4.1	Starts at $5,500 U.S. for Content Engines Starts at $19,995 U.S. for Content Distribution Managers	Currently available
Cisco IP/TV 3.4	Starts at $10,000 U.S. (software only)	Projected June 2002
CTE 1400 2.0 solution	Starts at $24,995 U.S.	Currently available

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