IBM Gets One Up on Cisco With HPR

As part of a networking product blitz last week, IBM previewed networking and performance improvements to its front-end processor (FEP) and brought long-awaited High Performance Routing (HPR) to several key hardware platforms.

IBM also stepped up its attack on Cisco, which has in recent years brought its routers in direct competition with IBM's front-end processors by making it possible to connect the routers to mainframe channels. IBM, in response, has migrated its customers from the 3745 to the faster and more versatile 3746 FEP.

"We make no apologies for the age of this technology," said Rick McGee, vice president of strategy and business development at IBM. The company plans to continue development for the 3746 next year, moving to a PowerPC processor, beefing up TCP/IP support and introducing more adapter types, including 155-megabit-per-second ATM and Fast Ethernet.

Positive Aggression

Users were encouraged by IBM's aggressive stance. In the past, IBM's technology was solid, but the company didn't market it well, said Philip Freyer, manager of domestic networking architecture and design at Atlanta-based United Parcel Service (UPS), which uses about 800 of IBM's lower-end 2210 routers.

Cisco's strength is that it offers true multiprotocol routers, pointed out Don Czubek, president of consultancy Gen-2 Ventures, Saratoga, Calif. But if a user's primary interest is in connecting to a mainframe using SNA protocols, IBM might offer a superior solution, he added.

One ace IBM is holding is a technology called Multipath Channel, which it doesn't plan to license, Czubek said. It lets the 3746 connect to a mainframe using HPR.

This is especially important with newer mainframes that use several lower-cost CMOS mainframe processors communicating via HPR, Czubek said. HPR is a feature of Advanced Peer-to-Peer Networking that speeds up transmission and routes traffic around failed links.

IBM announced it will bring HPR to the 2210 router, as well as its new 2216-a higher-end router that concentrates WAN traffic from a variety of sources using the recently introduced Multiprotocol Switched Services.

With this set of announcements, IBM has brought HPR to platforms it previously neglected, Czubek said.

IBM will add HPR support to the 3746 in December at no extra charge. HPR will go into only the higher-end models of the 2210 as part of the basic software suite, which will range from $300 to $550 and ship in the first quarter of next year. The 2216 will ship next March, starting at $8,250.

IBM can be reached at www.raleigh.ibm.com or 800-426-3333.

Copyright 1996 CMP Media Inc.