SAN JOSE, Calif. -- June 23, 1998 -- Cisco Systems, Inc. announced today that it is providing high-performance multilayer switching solutions to Washington University Medical Center's Genome Sequencing Center (GSC) to help unlock the mysteries associated with human DNA. By using Cisco's enterprise solutions, the lab has removed the bottlenecks within the network and now transmits approximately 4 trillion bytes of data per day. This increase in efficiency will allow scientists to speed up the process of discovering and documenting the human genetics puzzle.
In evaluating the various solutions currently available, the Medical Center required its future network to be flexible, reliable, and in terms of performance, it needed to be able to support multiple protocols and massive amounts of data. Cisco was the only solutions provider that met all the requirements.
"In our lab, we have a number of different systems including workstations, Macintoshes, PCs, mainframes, etc." said Kelly Carpenter, system manager for the Genome Sequencing Center. "By installing Route Switch Modules in Catalyst. 5500s and Catalyst 5000s, we were able to take advantage of all the multiprotocol benefits of the Cisco IOS. software as well as its security capabilities and get the high performance throughput and high densities of Ethernet switching."
The GSC's backbone was designed with four Fast Ethernet uplinks from each Catalyst 5500/5000 with each supporting a separate virtual LAN. While the GSC is examining the option to implement Fast EtherChannel., the long term goal is to migrate to gigabit networking over the next 18 months.
GSC personnel began planning the capacity and functionality of this network more than a year ago and has deployed the solutions in an incremental fashion to limit the amount of downtime. This method has allowed the DNA sequencing to continue uninterrupted.
"Cisco anticipated the evolution to high-performance multilayer switching years ago when we introduced the Catalyst 5000 family in May 1996," said Jayshree Ullal, vice president of marketing in the Enterprise Line of Business. "We have been and will continue to deliver on the promise of multilayer, high-performance networking solutions, in incremental steps to ensure smooth migration and investment protection for our customers."
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