SAN JOSE, Calif., August 14, 2000 - Cisco Systems, Inc. today announced several new hardware and software options for its Layer 3-enhanced ATM switching product portfolio, which includes the Catalyst 8540 and Catalyst 8510 series multiservice switch routers. The new features improve performance and capacity across all platforms in the Catalyst 8500 family, furthering ensuring the Cisco commitment to delivering solutions for high-quality voice, video, and data integration.

These features address several key trends that Cisco has observed among its customers in the enterprise networking market. Foremost, with the increasing prevalence of Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet in enterprise local area networks (LANs), customers are creating more IP multiservice traffic and demanding more support for sophisticated applications such as IP multicasting. And with enterprise ATM traffic shifting toward metropolitan area networks (MANs) and wide area networks (WANs), these customers require secure, reliable and scalable solutions to integrate their IP infrastructure through public and private ATM networks.

For example, AIG Data Center, a member company of American International Group, Inc.(AIG), the leading U.S.-based international insurance and financial services organization and the largest underwriter of commercial and industrial insurance in the United States, deployed the Catalyst 8500 to aggregate data, video, and voice traffic at the core over Gigabit Ethernet and route it at wire-speed throughout the company's backbone network using the ATM Router Module.

"The Catalyst 8500 series' Layer 3-enhanced ATM switching is an elegant solution for the rapidly-growing number of hybrid IP/ATM networks," said Tere Bracco, Director, Current Analysis.

A summary of the new hardware features is as follows:

• Two-port Gigabit Ethernet interface modules for the Catalyst 8540, offering features such as wire-speed routing, integrated access control lists (ACLs), and capacity for up to 256,000 routing table entries.

• Packet-over SONET (PoS) uplink for the Catalyst 8540. These modules support a one-port PoS uplink and a one-port Gigabit Ethernet port in one-slot card. It also provides built-in ACL functionality for security filtering and up to 256,000 IP/IPX entries for supporting large Internet routing tables.

• ATM Router Module (ARM) for the Catalyst 8510 MSR, which extends Layer 3-to-ATM integration functionality to these platforms. The ARM will also be available for the LightStream 1010 series ATM switches.

• ACL interface modules for the Catalyst 8510 and LightStream 1010, which bring ACL functionality to existing 8510 Layer 3 cards including 1-port Gigabit Ethernet, 8-port 10/100 Base-TX, and 8-port 100Base-FX.

New software features include:

• Support for RFC 1483 on the ARM for the Catalyst 8540 MSR, which provide features such as Layer 3-to-ATM integration over WANs, wire-speed switching, and support for IP precedence.

• Layer 3 enhancements for 2-port Gigabit Ethernet module, ATM uplink, and Packet over SONET uplink. New features include support for 256,000 routing table entries, IP fragmentation support, and IP load-balancing.

Today's announcements represent one step in a series of on-going initiatives Cisco is working on for its Layer 3-to-ATM product family. Future releases will include updates to IP multicast features, multiple protocol label switching (MPLS)/virtual private network (VPN) solutions, interworking of IP class of service (CoS) with ATM quality of service (QoS) and enhanced voice capabilities.

"With each announcement, we are reaffirming our commitment to developing Layer 3-enhanced ATM technology," said Carl Engineer, director of Marketing for the Metropolitan Services business unit at Cisco. "We see tremendous opportunities for growth for this technology in the MAN and WAN segments, and in the Catalyst 8500, we feel we have a solution designed specifically to meet these market needs."

Pricing and Availability

All hardware features announced today are now available. The two-port enhanced Gigabit Ethernet card for the Catalyst 8540 is available in several models with prices ranging from $7,995 to $16,995. The PoS uplink module ranges in price from $28,895 to $38,995. The ATM router module for the Catalyst 8510 and LightStream 1010 costs $15,000. The ACL daughter card for the Catalyst 8510 and LightStream 1010 costs $2,000.

Software upgrades are available at no charge to current customers on SMARTnet contracts and can be downloaded at www.cisco.com.