YUMA, Ariz. and SAN JOSE, Calif., August 19, 2002 -- Arizona Western College (AWC), a two-year community college, and Cisco Systems, the leader in networking for the Internet, today announced that AWC has moved to an end-to-end Cisco network infrastructure following its selection of the new Cisco Catalyst. 2950SX-24 desktop switches for its rollout of data, video and voice services at the main campus and five satellite campuses spanning 10,000 square miles.

Cisco also announced shipment of its new Catalyst 2950SX-24 desktop switch, which provides 24 10/100 ports and two integrated 1000BASE-SX uplink ports. The dual uplink ports allow redundancy and cost-effective gigabit uplink connectivity over fiber. In addition, the new product offers Cisco IOS. functionality such as quality of service (QoS), security and network management capabilities.

"We value the teaching and learning between our students, staff and faculty, so the network that supports these interactions must be immediately accessible and above all secure," said Tim Shove, VP of IT for Arizona Western College. "We replaced another vendor's switches with the Catalyst 2950SX-24 switches because Cisco provided a higher level of ease of use and reliability, as well as a stronger software feature set, including IEEE 802.1x for security; 802.1p, strict priority scheduling and weighted round robin for QoS; and IGMP snooping for bandwidth efficiency. This combination of capabilities from Cisco provides our college with strategic competitive advantages."

The Catalyst 2950SX-24 switch joins a host of other Cisco products deployed at AWC, including the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series and Catalyst 4000 Series switches, Cisco 3600, 2600 and 2500 Routers, Cisco VPN 3000 Series Concentrator, Cisco PIX 515 Firewall and, in the future, Cisco IP 7940 Phones. The community college is using its network to fulfill its long-term strategic vision of becoming the technological hub of Arizona's southwest region - providing access to continuous Internet-based services for its more than 10,000 students and 600 faculty and staff.

With Cisco products deployed throughout the network, AWC is taking a giant leap forward in its ability to:

• Meet its goal of offering full degree, remote learning programs via Web-based courses and telecourses;
• Deliver educational and informational pathways to learners through a broadcast television channel and two educational cable television channels;
• Make distance learning and teaching services available at satellite campuses through IP video conferencing;
• Prevent loss of equipment with IP video surveillance in classrooms and computer labs;
• Provide remote-Virtual Private Network (VPN) services to faculty and staff; and
• Execute on a plan to deliver streaming audio to listeners tuned into the National Public Radio-affiliated AWC college radio station.

Cisco Introduces New Catalyst 2950 Series Switch

The new Catalyst 2950SX-24 switch is part of the Catalyst 2950 Series product line with the Standard Image (SI) software version for basic workgroup connectivity. Also in this series are the Catalyst 2950-24 and 2950-12 switches. The complete Cisco Catalyst 2950 Series line of switches includes fixed-configuration, stackable and standalone models that provide wire-speed Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet connectivity for small and mid-sized networks.

"Cisco's goal is to provide our education customers with simple and affordable ways to build secure and highly available networks which enable productivity gains and enhance learning experience," said Maciej Kranz, Director of Marketing for Cisco's Desktop Switching Business Unit. "By choosing Cisco end-to-end intelligent network infrastructure, Arizona Western College is meeting its goal of managing and delivering powerful educational content to a broader audience through advanced, multi-media applications."

The Catalyst 2950SX-24 can be managed using either Cisco Cluster Management Suite (CMS) Web-based management software or CiscoWorks products. CMS is free and comes embedded on all Catalyst desktop switches, making it extremely easy for users to install and manage up to 16 switches using a single IP address - regardless of geographic proximity.