IBM Announces Industry’s First High Speed Autosensing Token Ring Adapter
Provides lower price, better performance and system management
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC (September 10, 1998) – IBM today announced the availability of the industry’s first autosensing High Speed Token Ring adapter — the IBM High Speed 100/16/4 Token Ring PCI Adapter. This new adapter is IBM’s first native High Speed Token Ring offering, and is ideal for IT managers with Token Ring adapters installed on high end clients and servers wanting a low-cost migration path to higher speeds.
IBM also announced a third generation pair of PCI Token Ring adapters — the 16/4 Token Ring PCI Adapter 2 and 16/4 Token Ring PCI Adapter 2 with Wake on LAN for server and desktop environments. These adapters incorporate the latest in performance and management features.
“A large percentage of the industry is heavily invested in Token Ring,” said Kevin R. Barry, general manager, PC Options and Peripherals. “These new Token Ring solutions offer IBM customers the performance they have come to expect, and provide a clear migration path to help them continue to expand their enterprise.”
Switch your enterprise into the fast lane…
IBM’s new 100/16/4 High Speed Token Ring Adapter enables the network to distribute information up to 100Mbps(1), an improvement of up to 625% over current 16/4 Token Ring offerings. The adapter’s autosensing feature allow customers to easily migrate to native High Speed Token Ring. IBM is the only vendor to offer an adapter with this capability.
IBM provides a simple migration path for existing Token Ring customers as the adapters will run with all standards-based Token Ring products. The adapters will run at 4 or 16 Mbps and the autosensing feature will automatically provide the higher 100 Mbps capability when attached to a hub or switch that is High Speed Token Ring capable.
Experience high performance and manageability…
IBM’s new networking adapters are designed and tested to offer the ultimate in system performance and manageability for both client and server environments. Whether IT managers require enhanced remote management features for their network, need faster data-throughput rates or simply need more networking bandwidth, IBM offers users a Token Ring solution to fit the individual needs of their networking environment. In fact, the latest independent Tolly performance test(2) shows IBM offers the highest performing 16/4 Token Ring adapters in the industry. At speeds up to 100Mbps, IBM’s new High Speed Token Ring offering provides customers a vast increase in performance and system management.
All three adapters are enhanced with new performance and manageability features, including a Route Switching client which enables IT managers to set up peer-to-peer Layer 2 IP routing path to eliminate bottlenecks. In addition, IBM is one of the only PC vendors to offer adapters that support IBM’s legacy Wake on LAN, Microsoft’s On/Now and the jointly developed IBM/Intel Alert on LAN. Alert on LAN, available with today’s announcement, allows personal computers to send alerts to the network management station when a system is tampered with or experiences a problem, providing enhanced remote management. In addition, IBM’s new adapters provide redundancy for Windows NT or Novell-based servers via a redundant NIC (network interface card) feature. This feature allows two adapters to share the same MAC address, providing a backup in the event of a failure. All adapters meet the requirements for PC97, PC98, PC99, Server98, and PCI 2.2.
Pricing and Availability
These new adapters will be available in late September. Estimated reseller prices follow(3). Each adapter is protected by a limited lifetime warranty with IBM’s worldwide service and support available 24 hours per day, seven days per week(4).
IBM High Speed 100/16/4 Token Ring PCI Adapter – $325 (ERP)
IBM 16/4 Token Ring PCI Adapter 2 with Wake on LAN – $299 (ERP)
IBM 16/4 Token Ring PCI Adapter 2 – $249 (ERP)
The Options by IBM Commitment
Options by IBM is committed to providing tested, quality and affordable PC solutions that enhance and protect its customers’ computing investment. The Options by IBM portfolio includes storage, communications/networking, memory, monitors, multimedia, and accessory products for desktop, workstation, server and mobile IBM and non-IBM systems. The Options by IBM Group distributes its products to channel customers including resellers, value-added resellers and retail superstores.
Source: IBM