STORAGE

DENVER, CO -- Spirent Communications™, a wholly owned business group of Spirent plc (NYSE: SPM), is playing a strategic role in a technology evaluation being conducted by Sandia National Laboratories. The second of three phases of this evaluation, which focuses on improving utilization of available bandwidth for applications in a scientific environment will be publicly demonstrating through November 16th, at the 2001 Supercomputing Conference (SC2001). “We chose to use the Spirent family of storage testing products because of the complete solution that Spirent brings to the table,” said Helen Chen of Sandia. “We are able to test the performance of all of our different network types, including fibre channel, Gigabit Ethernet, and packet over SONET, and we are able simulate network impairments all with a single vendor.” The technology evaluation is based on a partnership between industry and government, to help define the most efficient Storage Area Network (SAN) and Wide Area Network (WAN) architecture that will allow the government to leverage leading technology and maximize available financial resources. The demonstration will show improved network and storage efficiencies for Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI) Distant Supercomputing Requirements with an integrated End-to-End TCP/IP Architecture. This technology evaluation will be to show performance and configuration in a static environment prior to the integration of the SONET transport. The SONET integration will take place during the third phase of the evaluation, in the November/December timeframe. The technology evaluation is taking place across the several geographically disparate facilities, including Sandia, Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories, which comprise the Trilab testbed. Spirent is contributing products from its SmartBits and Adtech solution sets to the Trilab testbed. The SmartBits FBC-3602 Fibre Channel testing solution is providing network Quality of Services measurements, measuring the overall throughput, latency, and frame loss throughout the entire storage network. Spirent’s Adtech AX/4000 loaded with four OC-3/OC-12 test modules, is employing the Adtech WAN Emulator to simulate real-world network impairments such as latency and frame-loss. “Spirent’s involvement in testbeds such as the Trilab technology evaluation is another demonstration of our important role in advancing the state-of-the-art in data and communication networks,” said Neil Anderson, senior director, Advanced Test Programs at Spirent Communications. “Support for these test environments also underscores our commitment to helping companies integrate leading technology into their legacy networks as well as helping them plan their architecture for next generation IP networks.” Several industry-leading companies are participating in the Trilab technology evaluation, including AT&T, Avici, Brocade, Data Direct Networks, Nishan, Riverstone, SGI, Sun Microsystems and VERITAS. Sandia is a multi-program Department of Energy laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin Company, for the United States Department of Energy under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000. SC2001 is being held in Denver, November 10-16, 2001. The Trilab demonstration is in booth #R375 and Spirent Communications is in booth #658. For more information visit www.spirent.com