SANTA CLARA, Calif. and LONDON, July 16, 2008 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- Foundry Networks(r), Inc., a performance and total solutions leader for end-to-end switching and routing, today announced that the British Library has upgraded its network by installing the latest BigIron(r) RX-8 Layer 2/3 backbone switches and FastIron(r) Edge X Series Power over Ethernet (PoE)-ready switches at its Boston Spa and St. Pancras facilities. This is to meet demands for increased networking capacity for a wide range of crucial projects, from digitizing current and historical library collections and materials, to embracing virtualization in order to control costs through better use of substantial server infrastructure. These IT infrastructure enhancements strengthen the ability of the Library to continue a mission of enlightening and educating not just UK residents, but citizens of the world through unprecedented digital access to priceless and one-of-a-kind holdings. The new switches augment existing Foundry(r) equipment already installed.
A photo accompanying this release is available at http://www.primenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=5263
The British Library is the national library for the United Kingdom and one of the world's greatest research libraries. It provides world-class information services to the academic, business, research and scientific communities and offers unparalleled access to the world's largest and most comprehensive research collection.
Stephen Lilgert, the British Library's head of infrastructure strategy and development, says, "Publishers are legally required to send us a hard copy of every publication produced in the UK and Ireland. We hold material dating back to 300 B.C. and have treasures such as the Magna Carta, Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks, the first Times newspaper published on March 18, 1788, and even original manuscripts of Beatles songs."
On June 25, 2008, the British Library celebrated 10 years at its St. Pancras site, the largest public building constructed in the UK(1) in the twentieth century. The Boston Spa facility is the world's largest document delivering service primarily dedicated to supplying millions of documents annually to other libraries, academic institutions and businesses globally.
A long-time user of Foundry technology and solutions, the British Library originally installed Foundry BigIron 8000 backbone switches, FastIron 4802 and FastIron Edge switches in 2000 at Boston Spa after a full OJEC(2) tender process. This was to replace an obsolete FDDI(3)-based 3Com network, which was already then five years old.
The upgrade was also required since the British Library moved from Microsoft Windows for Workgroups to a Windows NT 4.0 environment to support 2,400 staff. Lilgert adds, "Clearly the network underpins a lot of what happens at the Library and this needed to be brought up-to-date to meet our IT and digital needs, plus last for a five-year period, which is our refresh cycle for networking. Foundry was selected at this time because we felt its technology was the best, its staff was professional and the reseller was realistic about costs."
In 2003, the St. Pancras site was also upgraded and a Cisco ATM-based network replaced with Foundry BigIron and FastIron switches. Lilgert adds, "We always felt homogenizing both sites and using one open standards-based supplier would give us considerable benefit from an ongoing total cost of ownership, support and management perspective, which is why we standardized on Foundry."
Today, the British Library has replaced the existing BigIron 8000 backbone switches in Boston Spa with two BigIron RX-8 switches to create a high-speed 20 gigabit Ethernet core as well as installing gigabit Ethernet FastIron Edge X Series switches in its computer rooms and selected edge areas to provide greater bandwidth to the server and high-end workstation infrastructure. The majority of the existing edge devices remain in place. Even after six years, the performance of these edge units more than meets the Library's needs, such is the performance and upgradeability of the Foundry products. A similar upgrade at St. Pancras was completed at the end of November 2007 through reseller, Pervasive Networks, along with direct support from Foundry's system engineers.
The need to upgrade the British Library's network is being driven by groundbreaking projects such as the digitization and distribution of unique content. This will improve public access to material, and make it easier to search and retrieve information, including:
* The Digital Library Program -- creating a digital library within a highly resilient and secure infrastructure to store, in perpetuity, any electronic material submitted as part of the voluntary scheme for the deposit of digital material. * The Microsoft Digitization project -- working with Microsoft and content conversion specialists (CCS), scanning out-of-copyright novels from the late nineteenth century from a range of authors such as Dickens, Eliot, Trollope and Hardy. Currently four scanners working on three shifts are being used to scan over one million pages per month with seven terabytes of data produced from this project. 40,000 books have now been successfully digitized; a further 40,000 books will be scanned as agreed in the Library's contract with Microsoft. A project to make this material available from reading rooms has just been completed with patrons accessing it through the online integrated library catalog. * Turning the Pages project -- now in version two and enhanced by Windows Vista, Turning The Pages allows people to read some of the Library's most precious books online and 'virtually' turn the pages, magnify details and hear expert audio commentary about each page. These materials include Jane Austen's early works, the "Diamond Sutra," the oldest printed book, and the first Atlas of Europe compiled in 1570. This project is currently in the process of being moved to a robust infrastructure able to support the projected growth of an additional 10 to 15 titles over the next 12 months, which naturally places demands on network bandwidth. * Creating an electronic archive for sound recordings and online storage of collection items -- almost all of the collection areas create digital content in some form or the other. Making this content available to internal staff, patrons and the wider public is a challenge that the network infrastructure has to be able to meet. Today, the Library is investing in 120 terabytes worth of storage capacity to support foreseeable future needs for collection storage.
The British Library is embracing virtualization as a way to better utilize space in its data centers and reduce associated costs, not only purchasing equipment, but ongoing power and cooling requirements and expenses. Currently, it has 250 servers -- a mixed environment of Windows, Solaris and legacy VAX/VMS and other UNIX variants, and is looking to build a virtual Microsoft SQL-based server farm.
Lilgert says, "We're looking to reduce our large physical server infrastructure through a combination of consolidation and virtualization. We are running a clustered, high-availability VMware infrastructure working on the basis of around 25 virtual servers sitting on one physical host. Bandwidth, therefore needs to be increased at the distribution layer hence the deployment of gigabit Ethernet FastIron Edge X Series switches in our computer rooms."
Foundry's ServerIron(r) Layer 4-7 application delivery switch technology is also being used to load balance the Library's integrated online library catalog, which lists items held, and is used by patrons to review what is available as well as order items from the Boston Spa-based document supply service. The service is available 24/7 and, on a daily basis, the Library receives thousands of requests for information, so uptime and availability is critical.
Similarly, Quality of Service (QoS) featured in the Foundry switches at both St. Pancras and Boston Spa allow bandwidth(4) between the sites to be managed effectively so that unified communication benefits such as IP telephony/Voice over IP (VoIP) and video conferencing services can be reliably delivered to lower costs in comparison to more traditional communications networks.
Lilgert concludes, "Without doubt, Foundry has played a large part in the ongoing development of the Library's IT infrastructure through the years. Its switch architecture is advanced, the technology has fulfilled our requirements and met our expectations, and overall it has been cost effective given the level of performance. Most importantly, we're now in a position to deliver some very exciting and innovative projects to add real value to the Library's services and for the library patrons."
Bob Schiff, Foundry's vice president and general manager, Enterprise Business Unit, says, "The British Library plays a huge role in capturing the intellectual capital of the nation and is a renowned knowledge repository not only for the UK, but for the entire world. The fact that one of the largest libraries in the world has standardized on Foundry is a testament to the performance and reliability of our technology. We are proud to be its networking solutions provider of choice as the Library continues digital archiving and opening its enduring collection to users far and wide."
About Foundry Networks
Foundry Networks, Inc. (Nasdaq:FDRY) is a leading provider of high-performance enterprise and service provider switching, routing, security and Web traffic management solutions, including Layer 2/3 LAN switches, Layer 3 Backbone switches, Layer 4-7 application switches, wireless LAN and access points, metro routers and core routers. Foundry's customers include the world's premier ISPs, metro service providers, and enterprises, including e-commerce sites, universities, entertainment, health and wellness, government, financial and manufacturing companies. For more information about the company and its products visit www.foundrynet.com.
The Foundry Networks, Inc. logo is available at http://www.primenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=2756
About the British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and one of the world's greatest research libraries. It provides world class information services to the academic, business, research and scientific communities and offers unparalleled access to the world's largest and most comprehensive research collection. The Library's collection has developed over 250 years and exceeds 150 million separate items representing every age of written civilization. It includes: books, journals, manuscripts, maps, stamps, music, patents, newspapers and sound recordings in all written and spoken languages. www.bl.uk
(1) It provides 112,000 square meters of space
(2) Official Journal of the European Communities
(3) Fiber Distributed Data Interface
(4) A 100 MB link connects the sites
The photo is also available at Newscom, www.newscom.com, and via AP PhotoExpress.
