LONDON, England, May 22, 2003 - Cisco Systems announced today that University College London (UCL) has chosen technology developed by Cisco to supply an upgrade to its network system providing multi-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet capability. The Cisco Catalyst® 6500 Series multilayer switches will help UCL to scale the network beyond 10/100/1000 Ethernet onto 10 Gigabit Ethernet facilitating high performance applications and research programs, such as the Large Hadron Collider project at CERN, which will produce data volumes measured in petabytes.

UCL is moving to 10 Gigabit Ethernet to help ensure it has the scalable architecture necessary to cost-effectively manage and deliver bandwidth-intensive traffic as well as having the technology platform necessary to quickly introduce and manage new tools and capabilities for the benefit of university staff and students.

Andrew Kerl, assistant director, information systems at UCL said, "The Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series with its high performance, quality of service and resilience is a key component in the UCL network. The network isn't just for teaching, learning and research but for all college business - if the network isn't available, UCL simply cannot function."

UCL has had Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series switches at the core of its network for the past three years. Now, with the introduction of the latest generation Cisco Catalyst 6500 Supervisor 720 Engine and high-density 10 Gigabit Ethernet modules, UCL will have access to next generation technologies and advanced IP/MPLS services.

As a multi-faculty university, UCL is heavily reliant on its network 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Reliability of network access is critical to UCL's 5,000 academic, research and support staff in 81 departments who require access to the network on campus, at home or whilst travelling. UCL's 19,000 students are engaged in both undergraduate and graduate studies and the network will provide the high-speed connectivity necessary to support e-learning and online study tools.

"For certain applications and the real-time needs of individual disciplines, you have to drive to ensure that, whatever else is going on, the traffic for your particular requirement is being given high priority across the network. Cisco's technologies help us achieve that," said Professor Roland Rosner, director of education & information support at UCL.

The integrated security services modules available for the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series will help provide increased protection against unauthorised access to UCL's secure areas. UCL will also have protection from embedded viruses that attack users and services, especially important to UCL as it increases its collaborative working environment and productive partnerships around the world.

UCL is deploying Cisco Catalyst 6500 Series switches, including the Cisco Catalyst 6500 Supervisor 720 Engine, 10 Gigabit Ethernet interface modules, Internet Protocol Security Virtual Private Network Services Module, Firewall Services Module, Network Analysis Module and Content Switching Module to support this new infrastructure.