Alcatel-Lucent Awarded "Best of Interop" for Breakthrough Data Center Switching Solution

LAS VEGAS, May 10, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris andNYSE: ALU) today announced its breakthrough data center switching blueprint solution won the Best of Interop award in the data center and storage category presented by InformationWeek Analytics at Interop Las Vegas, happening through May 12 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center. Announced just last month, the new solution provides a complete data center switching fabric that extends the boundaries of the enterprise data center through virtualization of the network with a unique "mesh" and "pod" architecture design. Alcatel-Lucent is currently demonstrating the data center switching blueprint solution at its booth #1851.

Alcatel-Lucent's blueprint solution provides a fresh approach to data center switching. According to Kurt Marko, Information Week Analytics, Alcatel-Lucent had the most compelling design and supporting products for building extremely scalable, high-performance, cloud-like data center networks suitable for today's virtualized applications.

With this energy-efficient solution, enterprises can manage applications as a service across a range of data center deployment models, including multi-site data centers, dedicated departmental or workgroup virtual data centers, and hybrid environments that can integrate service provider offerings. With its application services-enabling approach, Alcatel-Lucent opens the door for enterprises to leverage cloud service offerings from service providers to further extend the business value of the solution.

"The ever-expanding IT environment found in today's increasingly virtualized data centers are truly in need of forward-thinking concepts like Alcatel-Lucent's new Data Center Switching Solution. Companies planning to adopt 10Gb Ethernet and converged networking should take this as an opportunity to examine new and alternative networking strategies that can provide the same improved performance and flexibility that they've grown to expect from their other virtualization initiatives," said Steven Hill, Lead Judge, Best of Interop 2011.

Building on its Application Fluent Network vision and market-leading OmniSwitch 10K Modular LAN Chassis, Alcatel-Lucent's data center switching solution also features the new Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch 6900 Stackable LAN Switch, a high-density, 10GigE switch that can be positioned as a top-of-rack or end-of-row switch in a data center, and the virtual network profile (vNP), which captures application prioritization, switch provisioning, quality of service (QoS), and security requirements.  

"We are thrilled to receive a Best of Interop award for our breakthrough data center switching solution," said Michel Emelianoff, Vice President and General Manager, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise Networks.  "This award validates a new approach in networking. The battle is no longer about raw bandwidth, but about the relevance of an architecture that allows an enterprise to optimize latency for server-to-server (East-West) traffic in a highly scalable way, and span multiple sites."

Best of Interop recognizes some of the world's most innovative technologies across eight major categories. More than 100 companies' submitted products for consideration and judges selected finalists based on the products they believe have the greatest potential to impact and advance business technology efficiencies.  The panel of judges chosen to select the Best of Interop finalists was made up of 16 award-winning editors and analysts from InformationWeek Analytics. The two other finalists in the Data Center & Storage category included Juniper Networks and Mellanox Technologies. More information on Best of Interop can be found at www.bestofinterop.com.

About InformationWeek Analytics

InformationWeek Analytics is the leading resource for peer-driven research, providing business technology professionals with the real-world analysis and perspective they need to run better, smarter IT organizations. InformationWeek Analytics content is written and produced by an analyst team comprised of practicing senior IT professionals and InformationWeek's world-class editors. Featuring a combination of quantitative research and qualitative real world analysis, coupled with technology-adoption best practices, the InformationWeek Analytics site boasts more than 900 reports and briefs written specifically for and by IT professionals. InformationWeek Analytics is part of the InformationWeek Business Technology Network. For more information, visit www.analytics.informationweek.com.

About Interop®

Interop® drives the adoption of technology, providing knowledge and insight to help IT and corporate decision-makers achieve business success. Part of UBM TechWeb's family of global brands, Interop is the leading business technology event series. Through in-depth educational programs, workshops, real-world demonstrations and live technology implementations in its unique InteropNet program, Interop provides the forum for the most powerful innovations and solutions the industry has to offer. Interop Las Vegas is the flagship event held each spring, with Interop New York held each fall, with annual international events in Mumbai and Tokyo, all produced by UBM TechWeb and partners. For more information about these events visit, www.interop.com.

About Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris andNYSE : ALU)

The long-trusted partner of service providers, enterprises, strategic industries and governments around the world, Alcatel-Lucent is a leader in mobile, fixed, IP and Optics technologies, and a pioneer in applications and services. Alcatel-Lucent includes Bell Labs, one of the world's foremost centres of research and innovation in communications technology.

With operations in more than 130 countries and one of the most experienced global services organizations in the industry, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with global reach.

The Company achieved revenues of Euro 16 billion in 2010 and is incorporated in France and headquartered in Paris.

For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com, read the latest posts on the Alcatel-Lucent blog http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/blog and follow the Company on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Alcatel_Lucent.

SOURCE Alcatel-Lucent