Catalyst 2600 provides solutions for dedicated workstation attached andshared ring microsegmentation

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. - July 23, 1996 - Cisco Systems, Inc. todayannounced the availability of a high-performance, low-latency, standaloneToken Ring switch targeted at the workgroup switching environment. The Catalyst 2600 is thefirst switch offered by Cisco to providecustomers with low-cost Token Ring switch ports that can be used for ringsegment microsegmentation or dedicated, full-duplex attachment of fileservers/workstations. This provides customers with increased bandwidth toboth servers and end users' workstations with lower latency fortime-sensitive applications.

The Catalyst 2600 complements Cisco's current industry-leading switchedLAN solutions for Ethernet ,ATM internetworking andbackbone Token Ringenvironments. With the Catalyst 2600 switch, Cisco now provides end-to-endToken Ring solutions from the desktop to the backbone. Cisco's Token Ringcampus solutions also leverage the Cisco IOS(tm) software benefits of management, interoperability, scalability and security.

The Catalyst 2600 provides for microsegmentation of ring segments,media-speed data transport and low cost-per-port. The Catalyst 2600 alsotakes advantage of the IEEE 802.5r standards work to provide dedicatedToken Ring station attachment and full-duplex data transmission. Thisallows for dedicated switch port connections to busy file servers and otherhigh-performance devices.

Customers can deploy the Catalyst 2600 in a source-route bridged networkenvironment to collapse ring segments across a high-speed backplane. Thisimplementation "flattens" the number of hops in the bridged network andimproves overall network performance. The Catalyst 2600 can also beattached to a Catalyst 1600 backbone switch, in full-duplex mode (32 Mbps),extending the Catalyst 1600's high-performance, source-route bridgingcapabilities. This attachment allows high-speed interconnectioncapabilities between Catalyst 2600 workgroup switches. For customers whoimplement collapsed backbone networks using Cisco 7000 seriesrouters ,the Catalyst 2600 Token Ring switch provides a cost-effective way ofmicrosegmenting user and server rings.

Catalyst 2600 incorporates network management support

The Catalyst 2600 is managed by CiscoView(tm) , Cisco'snetwork management application that provides dynamic status, statistics andcomprehensiveconfiguration information for Cisco Systems' switched and internetworkingproducts. CiscoView delivers a consolidated enterprise management solutionand provides customers with the same look and feel for monitoring andmanaging all of their Cisco internetworking equipment.

Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the leading globalsupplier of internetworkingsolutions for corporate intranets and the global Internet.Cisco's products, including routers, LAN and ATM switches, dial-up accessservers and network management software, are integrated by the Cisco IOS software to linkgeographically dispersed LANs, WANs and IBM networks.Company news and product/service information are available at World WideWeb site http://www.cisco.com.Cisco is headquartered in San Jose, California.