MENLO PARK, Calif., Jan. 3, 1994 -- Cisco Systems has added support forAppleTalk Remote Access (ARA) 1.0 to its family of communication servers,allowing remote users of Apple Macintoshes and PowerBooks to gain access totheir organizations' internetworks from any location.

ARA is a standard feature on new communication servers shippedbeginning this month: the Cisco500-CS (with 8 or 16 ports) and the ASM-CS (with up to 112 ports). ARA is available as a free upgrade to existingcustomers enrolled in Cisco's software maintenance program.

Elizabeth McGee, Cisco product manager, said, "ARA expands themultiprotocol functionality of our communication servers, which now supportboth AppleTalk and IP while providing full terminal services for remoteusers. With our broad support for mobile access standards, PCs can becomeremote nodes via SLIP [Serial Line Internet Protocol] or PPP[Point-to-Point Protocol], X terminals via XRemote and PowerBooks via ARA.Frequent travelers and remote office workers with Macs can connect to aCisco communication server and gain access to all the resources andservices on the enterprise internet."

Cisco's ARA provides multiple levels of security, addressing thevarious security needs of organizations. Available are both username andpassword access through the communication server's internal database and acentralized username password service using TACACS (Terminal Access Controller Access System).

Cisco communication servers also can perform as MacIP servers, allowingMacintoshes to obtain IP numbers and run TCP/IP applications on top ofAppleTalk services. Users are able to access TCP/IP applications, such asTelnet and e-mail, concurrently with AppleTalk services, such as chooserand AppleShare.

Because Cisco communication servers act as AppleTalk end nodes ratherthan routers, they avoid "cluttering" the network with heavy routingtraffic. This capability lets network managers use AppleTalk with maximumefficiency.

To improve AppleTalk performance over telephone lines, Cisco hasincorporated an Apple specification called smart buffering. Smart bufferingeffectively provides for up to a 500-to-1 compression ratio through acombination of header compression and tokenized packet retransmissions forfile transactions over the telephone line.

"Our goal has been to include features which would optimize theperformance of an ARA connection," said McGee, "while offering ourcustomers full functionality through features such as network and zonefiltering, AppleTalk end node and logging."

Cisco communication servers combine the functionality of four serversin one box: terminal server for terminals, PCs, printers or modems;asynchronous router for sending LAN traffic over a dialup line to a remotenetwork; protocol translator for the telnet, LAT, rlogin, X.25 and tn3270protocols; and telecommuting server for remote individual communication viaSLIP, PPP, XRemote or ARA.