Bay uses intelligence for reliability

Bay Networks unveiled a strategy to ensure predictable and reliable network performance for business-critical applications.

Unveiling the programme at the Networld+Interop show in Las Vegas, Bay said it would reveal more details over the next few months.

A key to the strategy is adding application intelligence, the ability to distinguish between data streams from different applications to various components throughout the network. Bay claimed this would be introduced without a penalty in price, complexity or performance.

A basic network switch operates at Layer 2 of the network. To prioritise, for instance, SAP R/3 users above Web surfers, the switch must have access to the higher network layers.

Bay will extend the application intelligence to the edge of the network rather than the backbone.

The company promised to 'all but eliminate' the price difference between a Level 2 switch and a Level 2/Level 3 switch, and between ethernet and ATM systems.

Bay also announced a number of products that fit into the strategy. One of them was the Accelar 1050 Routing Switch, a standalone fixed configuration unit with 12 10/100 autosensing ports and one gigabit ethernet port. It will offer application prioritisation and ship in July.