Foundry Contributes to IPv6 Demo

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Foundry Networks®, Inc. (Nasdaq: FDRY - News), a performance and total solutions leader for end-to-end switching and routing, announced today that it provided critical network routing and switching technology for Moonv6, a collaborative project to build and demonstrate the U.S.' largest-ever IPv6 network. Initial interoperability testing for Moonv6 was completed on October 17 at the University of New Hampshire InterOperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL). More than 30 organizations joined forces for the project including major universities, the U.S. Department of Defense, industry standards bodies and network technology companies. Moonv6 deployed Foundry's NetIron® 4802 router, an extremely compact and powerful stackable router purpose-built for concurrent IPv4 and IPv6 networks.

"Moonv6 is unprecedented among IPv6 test events because it raises the concept of interoperability to the level of 'real-world' market demonstration," said Ben Schultz, managing engineer at the UNH-IOL. "We've gone beyond protocol testing and collaborated with participating service providers to demonstrate the resilience and reliability of IPv6 networks in numerous failure and compatibility scenarios, side-by-side with current Internet standards. Moonv6's success should clear the way for continued adoption of IPv6 throughout the world."

Based at UNH-IOL, the Moonv6 network reaches more than 3,000 miles from Durham, NH to San Diego, CA. The organization's primary IPv6 test event involved approximately 80 servers, switches and routers configured in dual stack mode, with IPv4 and IPv6 running in tandem. IPv6 is the next-generation Internet protocol that is expected to gradually replace IPv4, with the two coexisting during a multi-year transition period. The tests verified basic connectivity and interoperability of various routing, switching and tunneling applications in an IPv6 environment and demonstrated the performance of new IPv6 protocols including RIPng, OSFPv3, iBGP4+ and eBGP4+. The Moonv6 network will continue to serve as a proving ground, assisting in wide-scale deployment of IPv6 throughout North America.

"Many of our customers have already begun transitioning to IPv6, particularly in Asia and within the U.S. military which has a mandate to be fully IPv6 by 2008," said Chandra Kopparapu, vice president and general manager of Foundry's Service Provider and Multi-Layer Switching Business Unit. "IPv6 will enable powerful new applications, better network security, more efficient networks. We are committed to delivering high performance, end-to-end IPv6 based solutions for our customers."

Foundry's NetIron 4802 router provides network switching and routing capability for Moonv6. The NetIron 4802 router supports up to 48 10/100 ports and 2 Gigabit mini-GBIC ports in a 1.5 rack unit form factor. Packaged with complete IPv6 and IPv4 routing features, the NetIron 4802 router is a strong solution for enterprises and service providers beginning migrations to IPv6. It will also allow application developers to build and test a new generation of IPv6 applications, devices and services.

Foundry Networks is offering a free IPv4 to IPv6 migration poster through its website www.foundrynetworks.com/ipv6. The technology poster offers a complete glossary of IPv6 technical terms, important standards, a comparison of IPv4 and IPv6, the IPv6 protocol stack, and brief explanations of migration techniques.

Foundry Networks Inc.