ControlCircle relies on Foundry’s 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches to provide business critical data centre services for enterprise customers

ControlCircle relies on Foundry’s 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches to provide business critical data centre services for enterprise customers

o ControlCircle launches new 10 Gigabit Ethernet-based fibre ring service in London for clients requiring high-speed and resilient bandwidth
o ControlCircle to adopt Foundry as its best-of-breed network infrastructure partner as data centre locations more than double in the next 12 months
o ControlCircle now an approved Foundry partner installing switches as part of its managed service projects

LONDON – (July 30, 2007) – Foundry Networks®, Inc., a performance and total solutions leader for end-to-end switching and routing, today announced that ControlCircle, a specialist data centre services company, has selected its 10 Gigabit Ethernet switch technology, the FastIron® SuperX™ and FastIron Edge X series, to connect its various data centres and points of presence in London. In this multi-phase project, ControlCircle will offer robust Layer 3 BGP[1] Internet connectivity services to clients, along with MRP2[2] capabilities to ensure non-stop operation and service reliability. They will also be using Foundry switches when it updates its corporate LAN, as well as installing its technology where appropriate as part of client related managed service contracts.

ControlCircle provides a complete range of data centre services to organisations requiring business critical support where zero down time is an absolute necessity. This encompasses six areas: hosting, networking, security, storage, 24/7 monitoring & managed services, and connectivity. The company is unique because of its extensive technical skill set, use of a range of best-of-breed solutions, such as NetApp and Oracle, while also providing end-to-end solutions for clients. It also offers ultra-secure facilities for client equipment utilising biometric-based security, CCTV and additional security caging in its data centres.

ControlCircle’s customers include five of the top ten UK websites, blue chip companies and global enterprises.

Foundry’s FastIron SuperX and Edge X switches will be installed to interconnect every main data centre in London to create a 10 gigabit dark fibre ring, with ControlCircle later rolling them out to other locations worldwide as they open. Foundry was chosen because of its broad range of feature rich 10 Gigabit Ethernet switches including compact units which its competitors do not excel.

Damian Milkins, ControlCircle’s chief executive officer, says, “Clients select us as we can not only sell them the equipment they need for their production and disaster recovery systems, but then implement, configure and provide ongoing monitoring & management. This contrasts with our competitors who don’t offer such a complete service and explains why we’ve built such an impressive client base since the business was founded six years ago.”

ControlCircle’s success is evidenced by the fact that it is debt free, self funded and has grown organically.

ControlCircle’s investment in Foundry switch technology is considerable as it plans to open 10 new data centres this year to add to the nine already operational in Europe, Asia and America, with Foundry the network infrastructure partner of choice in each.

The new switches have various features to ensure non-stop operation such as MRP2, Foundry’s Metro-Ring Protocol, which enables multiple network rings to be created with a shared link without creating single points of failure. Should there be break in Internet transmission, perhaps because of an equipment failure or cable being cut due to road works for example, MRP2 works in milli-seconds to find an alternative path to route traffic ensuring business continuity.

Phil Mack, ControlCircle’s head of networking technologies, explains, “Prior to investing in creating our own 10 Gigabit Ethernet ring, we lacked the resilience and bandwidth we wanted for clients so the investment in leasing two fully meshed dark fibre rings and installing Foundry provides the performance required and infrastructure for growth. MRP2 was a key selling point to ensure network uptime.”

Foundry has therefore become the core element of ControlCircle’s network with all its services utilising the high speed backbone network. Adding new clients to the fibre ring is also really simple using Foundry’s IronView® Network Manager software. Phil Mack adds, “It has a nice GUI and allows us to collect sFlow security information which we have turned on. This enables us to monitor the performance of the network right down to byte level and, because this is all done in hardware, there’s no impact on network performance.”

Milkins concludes, “A key plus for us was the direct support from both sales and technical staff within Foundry rather than having to go through a reseller. On every level, they have been very proactive and went out of their way to ensure speedy equipment delivery given our specific needs.”

Bob Schiff, Foundry’s vice president and general manager, Enterprise Business Unit, says, “Data centre companies live and breathe on providing robust and reliable services to their clients otherwise customers walk. Foundry has always been an innovator in the networking market and was the first to launch 10 Gigabit Ethernet products. We’re delighted that ControlCircle today is using the latest generation of our 10 Gigabit switches to expand its business so aggressively to meet all its customers’ needs.”

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About Foundry Networks

Foundry Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: FDRY) is a leading provider of high-performance enterprise and service provider switching, routing, security and Web traffic management solutions, including Layer 2/3 LAN switches, Layer 3 Backbone switches, Layer 4-7 application switches, wireless LAN and access points, access routers and metro routers. Foundry’s customers include the world’s premier ISPs, metro service providers, and enterprises, including e-commerce sites, universities, entertainment, health and wellness, government, financial and manufacturing companies. For more information about the company and its products visit www.foundrynet.com.

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[1] Border Gateway Protocol
[2] Metro Ring Protocol