SAN JOSE, CA -- Foundry Networks(R), Inc. (Nasdaq:FDRY), a leading provider of high-performance enterprise and service provider switching, routing and Layer 4 - 7 traffic management solutions, announced today that the University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute (USC-ISI) has deployed Foundry's IEEE 802.3ae standards-based 10-Gigabit Ethernet solution in its network backbone to enable ultra-high speed network-based applications and communications among its research departments. USC-ISI is an off-campus research facility of the University of Southern California's School of Engineering involved in a broad spectrum of information science research and in the development of advanced computer and communication technologies. USC-ISI requires advanced networking solutions to deliver a high-speed, high-performance computing environment for research scientists to enable large-scale research collaboration and exploratory system development. Foundry's 10-Gigabit Ethernet solution plays a key supporting role in Dr. Carl Kesselman's Globus project for Grid Computing. The primary goal of the Globus project is to enable new ways of using computers by allowing resources such as computers, storage, data and applications to be shared across collaborating organizations. "With network reliability and availability being crucial, we needed a high-performance 10-Gigabit Ethernet solution with minimum latency to demonstrate the ability to build and effectively manage large general-purpose, data-intensive computer clusters," said Richard Nelson, director of information processing at USC-ISI. "With Foundry's 10-Gigabit Ethernet solution, we now offer research scientists an advanced, high-performance network computing infrastructure which will enable the next-generation solution for Grid computing," continued Nelson. "Distributed computing requires advanced network infrastructure solutions and Foundry's 10-Gigabit Ethernet is the solution of choice for many early 10-Gig adopter customers, like USC-ISI," said Bobby Johnson, president and CEO of Foundry Networks. "By choosing Foundry's BigIron(R) 10-Gigabit Ethernet solution, USC-ISI is now able to develop a massive distributed computing environment across a very high-speed network infrastructure for advanced research and collaboration. We are very pleased to contribute to the success of the Globus project for Grid Computing," continued Johnson. For more information visit www.foundrynetworks.com