Networking duo extend alliance

Cisco Systems and Olicom will offer interoperability between their ATM equipment, extending the alliance covering Token Rings signed in March.

The joint marketing initiative, announced last week, will promote the benefits of the end-to-end ATM solutions the two companies can provide.

Olicom introduced Cell Driver 2.1 at the same time, the latest version of its ATM software for Olicom's Rapid Fire group of 155Mbps ATM adaptors, which the firm claims bring fault tolerance to ATM.

Steve Pomeroy, ATM partnerships manager at Cisco, paid tribute to Olicom's long history in ATM hardware and software. 'Olicom's support for Cisco's SSRP protocol makes it more important than ever for Cisco to develop joint ATM solutions with Olicom.'

Cisco will invest in equipment and manpower and will perform fault tolerance and resiliency tests, while Olicom does the majority of the interoperability testing.