XKL Supports Caltech in Supercomputing '08 Bandwidth Challenge

Contact Information:
Bruce Manning, The Manning Group, Bruce@ManningPR.com, +1-949-716-8126
Robert Michaels, XKL, michaels@xkl.com, +1-425-556-5774

XKL’s Darkstar™ System Provides Key Link to Worldwide Consortium

Redmond, WA, Dec 11, 2008 – XKL, LLC (www.XKL.com), a provider of enterprise network equipment, today announced the company’s recent participation with a consortium of institutions led by researchers at the California Institute of Technology. The consortium demonstrated record sustained data transfers in excess of 100 Gigabits per second from computer systems located at the Supercomputing ’08 conference in Austin, Texas and research institutions worldwide, including the Caltech campus in Pasadena, California.

Last-minute network changes brought demand for additional high-bandwidth connectivity to be installed between the Caltech campus and a data co-location facility in downtown Los Angeles. XKL Darkstar equipment was brought in to quickly and easily meet this need, enabling more servers at Caltech to be used in the challenge.

“There were a number of companies we could have chosen, but XKL turned out to be the easy choice,” said Harvey Newman, Professor of Physics at Caltech. “With their Darkstar DXM optical transport system in place, we quickly had an easy-to-use, reliable 100Gbs of bandwidth up and running in a small, easy-to-install package. It was more than we could’ve hoped for.”

Installation of the Darkstar DXM system provided 5 times the bandwidth, while using only a fraction of the space and power of the existing system. Space and power were a major concern in the crowded downtown data co-location facility. The XKL Darkstar was quickly deployed and ran flawlessly.

XKL’s Darkstar architecture provides optical transport with an easy-to-use router-like management structure. This includes well-known standards such as a familiar command line interface, SNMP, and an independent TCP/IP management network. As a result, the Darkstar can be quickly deployed, scaled, and managed without employing trained optical engineers or bearing a large support contract. Simply install it in a rack, make the proper connections, and realize carrier-class fiber optic communications.

About XKL

XKL, located in Redmond, Washington and led by CEO and Cisco Systems co-founder Len Bosack, develops products that epitomize the company’s mission: Bringing fundamental change to worldwide telecommunications. For features and specifications, please visit our website or go directly to http://www.xkl.com/products/.

See the Caltech Press Release for more information on the bandwidth challenge and the Industry Support for it.

XKL, L.L.C., 5020 148th Avenue NE Suite 100, Redmond, WA 98052, 425-869-9050
Email info@xkl.com, or visit us at www.XKL.com

Posted December 11, 2008