SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Foundry Networks®, Inc. (Nasdaq: FDRY - News), a performance and total solutions leader for end-to-end switching and routing, today announced The Amsterdam Internet Exchange (AMS-IX) has selected its new Terabit-capacity BigIron® MG8 10 Gigabit Ethernet (10GbE) Layer 2/3 switches as the backbone of its exchange network, to increase its infrastructure capacity. AMS-IX is an independent association of 160 European Internet Service Providers (ISPs) linked by the AMS-IX network. More than half of these providers are international service providers that route a large proportion of their Internet traffic through AMS-IX.

AMS-IX handles nearly 18 Gigabits of Internet traffic per second at peak times, amounting to approximately 7,700 Terabytes of data in total each month. AMS-IX is also re-engineering its network topology to create a more resilient core structure. The implementation will allow AMS-IX to scale up service provisioning to widely offer 10GbE connections.

Henk Steenman, Chief Technology Officer of AMS-IX said, "AMS-IX chose Foundry Networks again for this growth milestone in our history because of the excellent working relationship and the high-quality technological innovation offered by Foundry. A further decisive factor was the superior support that Foundry is offering in carrying out these far-reaching changes."

The new Terabit-capacity BigIron MG8 switches will form the heart of AMS-IX network infrastructure in its Amsterdam co-location facilities. AMS-IX will use the newly released Terathon(TM) ASIC-based BigIron MG8 switch for deployment into its network to accommodate the expected growth in enterprise and local provider customers as well as network capacity in the coming years. Full network implementation is scheduled for completion by the end of 2003.

AMS-IX is leveraging Foundry's BigIron MG8 32 port 10GbE platform since scalable expansion is important for AMS-IX to keep pace with the explosive growth in network traffic. For instance, in the Netherlands a major consumer broadband network rollout has seven major Dutch cities being fully fitted with fibre-to-the-home connectivity. Large volume users, particularly ISPs, have a great need for the increasing densities of 10GbE ports that AMS-IX can offer using the BigIron MG8. The new star-topology network design means any individual line failure or overloaded connections will not adversely affect other lines or sites. The new one-third rack size Foundry BigIron MG8 switch will make AMS-IX one of the first organizations to upgrade to Foundry's new 40-Gigabit architecture.

"The BigIron MG8 is a revolutionary product that is gaining rapid momentum in leading networks throughout the world," said Bobby Johnson, president and CEO of Foundry Networks. "This new platform leads the industry in 10GbE density, performance, reliability and features requested by the world's most demanding networks. AMS-IX is also an existing BigIron Layer 2/3 backbone switch user and is a prime example of our global customers who require performance from wiring closet to the core in order to support their business applications," added Johnson.

Membership in AMS-IX allows ISPs to reduce their costs, build in extra capacity and redundancy and offer their customers faster transmission rates. The organization has four sites in Amsterdam: SARA, NIKHEF, Global Switch and Telecity, all using Foundry Ethernet switches interconnected by 10GbE links.

Foundry Networks Inc.