TAIPEI, Taiwan -- 20 December 2000 -- In one of the largest projects of its kind, Cisco Systems has won a major contract to provide network equipment for a island-wide fibre optic network system being constructed by Symphox Technology, the Internet communications arm of the Lin Yuan Group, Taiwan's biggest conglomerate.
Built as part of a broad push by the company into the Internet Data Centre (IDC) business, the dual ring fibre-optic network will link three large-scale centres in Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung, as well as nine subsidiary telecommunications sites in other cities.
It will initially be used for providing communications services for members of the Lin Yuan group of companies including Cathay Life, Taiwan's largest insurance company; Cathay Construction, the nation's largest construction company and Taiwan First Investment and Trust, one of the island's largest financial services firms.
In total, more than 200 buildings in the group will be linked-up to the network, providing a critical mass of customers for the Symphox IDC service which will be launched to enterprise customers and multinationals throughout Taiwan.
"Symphox is constructing one of the Taiwan's largest and most capable fibre-optic network backbones as a foundation for its ambitous plans for developing a Internet Data Centre business," said Jerry Chen, General Manager of Symphox Technology. "With the Lin Yuan Group as a founder client we will already have a substantial share of this fast growing market and one which we'll soon extend to outside firms."
Based on Cisco's advanced network architecture, Symphox's IDC service is designed to offer uninterrupted connectivity and a one-stop shop for network solutions. The company will offer 24 x 7 x 365 professional technical support and high-reliability, high-performance IDC services. Already the Taichung and Kaohsiung IDCs have begun operation, with the main Taipei IDC scheduled to launch shortly.
The network backbone will feature an array of Cisco carrier-level GSR 12000 series and Cisco 7500 series routers, as well as Cisco 6500 switches, which together will direct data traffic across a series of high-bandwidth OC3 backbones (155.52Megabits per second) criss-crossing the island.
Also incoporated is Cisco's CSS 11000 Series, an intelligent content switch which can support up to 20 millions Web sites as well as providing a good level of security for the sites and the back-end system. The system allows the security of each Web site to be configured according to the its unique needs such that the web site can be protected from Denial of Service (DoS) attack and provide non-stop web services for the authorised users.
"As the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet, Cisco is committed to developing new technologies," said Larry Sun, Country Manager of Cisco Systems Taiwan. "Our Content Delivery Network architecture provides IDC carriers with stable quality of service feature and data storage, backup and recovery services."
"Our partnership with Symphox highlights our commitment to expanding Cisco's local presence in Taiwan. We will provide Symphox with professional expertise and support teams to enable Symphox to gain a head start in the market," he said.
As well as providing the core network infrastructure, Cisco provides Symphox with a system that can manage and monitor the key equipment in the data centres.
Symphox IDCs will be equipped with off-site redundancy mechanisms to provide the best support features and the highest customer satisfaction. The system integration will be implemented by Hwacom Systems.
Equipment supplied in the contract includes the Cisco Catalyst 6000, a family of intelligent multi-layer, gigabit enterprise switches that can transmit data at 1.5 Gigabits per second packets and support for Cisco IOS software.
The Cisco GSR 12000 Router/Switch Series adopts high-speed, distributed routing and smooth cross-bar switching architectures, which can provide layer 3 routing services at multi-gigabit speed to highly upgrade the traffic throughput, transmission bandwidth and performance of Internet. It can handle complex packet processing such that the network can still provide excellent QoS guarantee at gigabit-level transmission speed.
Cisco's 7500 Router has high efficient distributed switching, high scalable control and transfer, and IP service acceleration capabilities. Combined with high scalable and powerful Cisco IOS software, it can provide high efficient queuing and traffic engineering services for all kinds of IP QoS products. It can make packet transmission more smooth, upgrade traffic throughput and system performance such that the operation of IP network will be improved in turn.
About Symphox Technology
Symphox Technology Co. Ltd. provides Chinese customers with a one-stop shop for Internet solutions. The company also provides network hosting and co-location services to enable Lin Yuan Group's office building tenants to optimize the use of dedicated broadband network and floor real estate. Symphox is also Lin Yuan Group's largest support team for entering the Internet and e-commerce markets. Established by Taiwan's largest private enterprise group, Lin Yuan Group, Symphox is Lin Yuan's pioneer in the network market. he company deployed an islandwide fiber-optic network system and three IDCs in North, Central and South Taiwan, to enable a corporate network architecture for Lin Yuan Group and to explore new business opportunities in the following fields through the company's professional services: dedicated Internet connection, hosting and co-location, e-mail hosting, enterprise network planning and deployment, and network design and planning. For more information about Symphox Technology, please visit www.symphox.net.
About Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet. Cisco news and information are available at www.cisco.com.
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