cPacket Networks 2061 Landings Drive Mountain View, CA 94043 Tel 650-969-9500 www.cpacket.com	SMC Networks 20 Mason Irvine, CA 92618 Tel 800-762-4968 www.smc.com
For cPacket press information contact: Abigail Johnson/Paul Michelson Roeder-Johnson Corporation (650) 802-1850 http://email.roeder-johnson.com	For SMC press information contact: Ken Hagihara Integrity Public Relations +1 (949) 768-4423 x801 ken@integritypr.net

CPACKET AND SMC NETWORKS COLLABORATE TO BRING WIRE SPEED, REAL-TIME VISIBILITY TO FAMILY OF 10 GIGABIT ETHERNET SWITCHES

Plug-in "Visibility Module" Offers Fine-grained Control at Affordable Price; Uses Standard XAUI Interface

IRVINE, CA and MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA, November 17, 2008 – “Complete” packet inspection chipmaker cPacket Networks and SMC Networks, a leading provider of high-performance networking solutions, announced today that they have collaborated on developing “smart” plug-in modules for SMC’s 10 Gigabit Ethernet switching solutions that will offer real time, wire speed network visibility and management at an unprecedented 10 gigabits per second.

The cost-effective modules, which are designed around cPacket’s unique “complete packet inspection” chip, will plug into SMC’s products via the available XAUI interface. The cPacket chip is capable of inspecting 100% of the header and data bits in 10 gigabit traffic, and monitoring, filtering, and providing alerts based on triggering events, at full wire speeds, under any traffic loads, and with no impact on network performance.

“The increased complexity of network traffic composed of voice, video and data is exacerbated with the high throughput of 10 gigabit networks,” stated Nick Lippis, a recognized authority on computer networking, and president of the Lippis Report. “The problems are more complex and spread much more quickly; thus there is a need for pervasive and simple visibility into the traffic going through the network.”

SMC switches equipped with the planned visibility module will enable network administrators to achieve this “pervasive visibility” – allowing them to pinpoint issues and take corrective actions proactively, all in real time. Bandwidth, packet rates, and protocol distributions will be visible on a second-by-second basis, through a simple Web interface. Additionally, users will be able to define triggers, and selective mirroring of specific subsets of traffic, permitting effective drill down and real time network troubleshooting.

Keith Alexis, vice president of sales at SMC Networks, said of the collaboration: “With the growing adoption of high-bandwidth, mission critical applications such as network virtualization, we are dedicated to advancing 10 gigabit networking in the SMB and enterprise environments. This new partnership with cPacket will enable SMC to provide real-time traffic visibility at an affordable price – a capability which has previously been attainable only in much higher-priced solutions.”

In regards to the market impact, Alexis added: “The capability to analyze network traffic at the granular level provides our reseller partners and customers with an incredible value proposition by giving them the tools to analyze traffic and take proactively steps to optimize network performance and minimize downtime.”

Rony Kay, president of cPacket, explained how such price performance is possible. “cPacket has developed a new class of chips that can inspect every bit in every packet on the fly, at 10 gigabits, and with no impact on performance. cPacket architecture enables easy integration of performance monitoring, application behavior analysis, selective drill down, and control features.”

The chips, which have been thoroughly field proven in reference design hardware, are claimed by Kay to offer about a 100:1 price-performance ratio over previous solutions found in high-end, mission critical hardware. “We achieve 10 times the processing power at one-tenth the cost”, he said.

But both Alexis and Kay insist that the story is more than simply about price. “The ‘complexity exacerbation’ that Nick Lippis talks about is real,” said Alexis. “Network administrators – even in small to medium businesses – but particularly in enterprises and data centers, are looking for a solution that provides advanced exquisite visibility and control on 10G links that, day in and day out, are passing up to 15 million packets per second in each direction. We’ve now got a solution for them.”

And for his part, Kay is excited about that solution. “Finding a way to pervasively monitor and manage the exploding 10G infrastructure is one of the most important networking problems today,” Kay maintained. “We think that SMC is an ideal partner to bring the required tools to the switch marketplace, and really look forward to working with them.”

SMC and cPacket are demonstrating the visibility module at the Super Computing ‘08 show in Austin Texas this week, at either the SMC booth, #1741 or the cPacket booth, #2043.

About SMC Networks

SMC Networks is a leading provider of affordable, easy-to-use, high-performance networking solutions for the consumer, small- and medium-sized businesses, and enterprise markets. With a global presence that supports customers throughout the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia-Pacific, SMC leverages its heritage of over 35 years to deliver to market a level of quality, reliability and technological advancement that has established it as one of the premier network companies in the industry.

Since 2003, SMC has maintained a Green portfolio of networking products demonstrating its commitment to the environment at a very early stage. In 2008, In-Stat confirmed SMC's commitment to go beyond cursory attempts at power management when it stated that SMC was one of the top five most energy efficient in the 24/48 port managed switch category. SMC's Green Policy is a key component of the company's core strength that can be leveraged by its install base.

SMC Networks is headquartered in Irvine, Calif. For more information, visit the company’s Web site at www.smc.com or call (800) SMC-4YOU.

About cPacket Networks

cPacket Networks is an emerging leader in chips and technologies that offers breakthrough, “complete” packet inspection, at a fraction of the complexity, power, or cost of preexisting approaches. It provides manufacturers of routers, switches and other network appliances a low-impact means to easily drop game-changing, wire-speed active network traffic analysis and response directly into their existing or planned designs – whether targeted at the service providers, the enterprise, or the small office.

The exploding use of networks for media-centric applications makes the availability of truly pervasive deep packet inspection timely and crucial. cPacket was founded in 2003 and is located in Mountain View, CA. For more information, visit www.cpacket.com.

 

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