EmergeCore Plans Summer Availability for Linux-based IP Switch

EmergeCore Networks LLC (www.emergecore.com) in July expects to begin shipping a Linux-based IP switch, which the company says offers the same speed and functionality and more flexibility than competitors’ boxes that sell for twice the price.

“Remember this, it’s twice the price for Shasta or SpringTide,” says CEO and president Steven Clegg, adding that EmergeCore’s switches offer the same backplane speed as the respective Nortel Networks (www.nortelnetworks.com) and Lucent Technologies Inc. (www.lucent.com) boxes.

Clegg says with other switches, carriers have to invest in separate hardware blades to add functionality for VPNs, firewalls or quality of service. EmergeCore’s Reactor 3000 and 5000 products offers all that functionality via software, he says.

“We want to target service providers that don’t want to buy $100,000 of equipment and then hope for enough customers,” he says. “Ours is midrange – $30,000 to $50,000 – and you add software as needed.”

Ken Bown, the company’s vice president of marketing, says EmergeCore includes standard revenue-generating services like VPN, firewalls and packet shaping along with the switches, but that carriers can also run third-party software on the platform, as well, to differentiate themselves from other service providers in the market.

Clegg adds that the ability to add new functionality in a modular fashion, which is enabled by Linux, brings the total cost of ownership down for the service provider. Linux also allows carriers to bring services to market more quickly, he adds, noting EmergeCore offers a GUI-based, drag-and-drop interface for application management.

EmergeCore’s FusionPort Technology, meanwhile, lets carriers configure services on a port by port basis, Bown adds. For example, the network operator might set authorizations to enable one user or group to access Napster and block that application from others.

The Reactor, which the company is beta testing with undisclosed customers, includes 24 ports at 10/100BaseT; a 2 gigabit port; a PC card slot for configuration software; two USB ports for external CD-ROMs or to do active failover; and a 12-gigabit ASIC backplane. The Reactor 3000 is a single-unit product that will sell for $15,000 to $20,000, depending on configuration. The three-unit Reactor 5000 will sell for $30,000 to $50,000. (A unit fills one 1.75-inch rack.)

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