Alteon WebSystems on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
Alteon WebSystems (originally Alteon Networks, Inc.) is a division of Radware that produces application delivery controllers.
Alteon was acquired by
Alteon WebSystems (originally Alteon Networks, Inc.) is a division of Radware that produces application delivery controllers.
Alteon was acquired by Nortel Networks
Nortel Networks Corporation (Nortel), formerly Northern Telecom Limited, was a Canadian multinational telecommunications and data networking equipment manufacturer headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. It was founded in Montreal, Quebec in 1895 ...
on October 4, 2000.
On February 22, 2009 Nortel Networks sold the Alteon application switching line to Radware.
History
Alteon Networks was founded in 1996 by Mark Bryers, John Hayes, Ted Schroeder and Wayne Hathaway. Initialventure capital
Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to start-up company, startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in ...
investors were Matrix Partners
Matrix (formerly Matrix Partners) is a US-based venture capital investment firm. The firm invests in seed and early-stage companies in the United States and India, particularly in the software, communications, semiconductors, data storage, Int ...
and Sutter Hill Ventures. Dominic Orr became chief executive in October 1996.
Alteon introduced innovative products such as the ACEswitch 180, which was the first network switch
A network switch (also called switching hub, bridging hub, Ethernet switch, and, by the IEEE, MAC bridge) is networking hardware that connects devices on a computer network by using packet switching to receive and forward data to the destinat ...
to deliver Ethernet
Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...
with selectable speed, 10/100 or 1000 Mbit/s
In telecommunications, data transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...
, on every port via autonegotiation
Autonegotiation is a signaling mechanism and procedure used by Ethernet over twisted pair by which two connected devices choose common transmission parameters, such as speed, Duplex_(telecommunications), duplex mode, and Flow_control_(data), flow ...
. Their ACEdirector Layer 4-7 switch was designed as an integrated services front-end and server load balancer
In computing, load balancing is the process of distributing a set of tasks over a set of resources
''Resource'' refers to all the materials available in our environment which are Technology, technologically accessible, Economics, economically ...
. They also introduced Jumbo Frames (up to 9,000 bytes) with their ACEnic adapters, and supported by their switches.
In addition to server switches, Alteon produced the first network interface controller
A network interface controller (NIC, also known as a network interface card, network adapter, LAN adapter and physical network interface) is a computer hardware component that connects a computer to a computer network.
Early network interface ...
(NIC) in 1997 that used Gigabit Ethernet
In computer networking, Gigabit Ethernet (GbE or 1 GigE) is the term applied to transmitting Ethernet frames at a rate of a gigabit per second. The most popular variant, 1000BASE-T, is defined by the IEEE 802.3ab standard. It came into use in ...
(demonstrated at the Networld + Interop trade show in September 1996).
Alteon's third generation Gigabit Ethernet NIC (code named "Tigon") became the basis for Broadcom
Broadcom Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational designer, developer, manufacturer, and global supplier of a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software products. Broadcom's product offerings serve the data cen ...
's family of Ethernet controllers (series BCM570x) and has shipped over 60 million copies. It was used in low-cost adapters from vendors such as 3Com
3Com Corporation was an American digital electronics manufacturer best known for its computer network products. The company was co-founded in 1979 by Robert Metcalfe, Howard Charney and others. Bill Krause joined as President in 1981. Metcalfe ex ...
.
In July 2000, Nortel Networks
Nortel Networks Corporation (Nortel), formerly Northern Telecom Limited, was a Canadian multinational telecommunications and data networking equipment manufacturer headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. It was founded in Montreal, Quebec in 1895 ...
announced it was buying Alteon for US$
The United States dollar (Currency symbol, symbol: Dollar sign, $; ISO 4217, currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and International use of the U.S. dollar, several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introdu ...
6 billion in stock. The deal had originally been announced with a value of $7.8 billion, but the stock market plummeted before the deal closed in October.
Nortel rolled the ACEDirector and ACESwitch products into its Personal Internet product line, but one year later sales had slowed down.
On February 22, 2009 Nortel Networks announced they would sell the Alteon application switching line to Radware, for $17.65 million.
In November 2013, Radware announced the Alteon NG, marketed as an application delivery controller.
References
External links
* * {{Dot-com Bubble 1999 initial public offerings 2000 mergers and acquisitions Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq Dot-com bubble Nortel Defunct computer companies of the United States Defunct computer hardware companies Defunct networking companies Networking companies of the United States Networking hardware companies