3Com Pushes RAS to the Edge - integrated NT server into Total Control Remote Access Concentrator - Product Announcement

Corporations with large telecommuting employee populations have a problem: Every single remote access session adds to the amount of traffic running across their LANs, and requires extra CPU cycles from already overtaxed network servers. Managing remote access solutions, which may comprise heterogeneous components from various vendors, becomes a growing problem as well.

In an attempt to solve these problems associated with remote access, 3Com Corp. (Santa Clara, Calif.) has integrated a Windows NT server into its Total Control Remote Access Concentrator by way of its new EdgeServer Pro card. A more efficient network is the end goal.

Typical networks are based on a two-tiered client/server solution, in which applications servers must do double duty handling both applications and remote access I/O. Remote access users experience bottlenecks and slow performance as a result. By integrating a remote access concentrator together with a Windows NT server, 3Com enables administrators to insert an extra tier into the network hierarchy, on which frequently accessed data and applications can be placed.

Not only can this middle-tier EdgeServer Pro card and the Total Control platform tackle RAS I/O requirements, freeing up the mission-critical database servers and transaction-processing servers in your network, but also corporations can consolidate their Web servers, proxy servers, intranet servers, or security and authentication servers onto a single self-contained platform.

"Edge-based applications are becoming increasingly important as customers strive to add value to their networks. The EdgeServer Pro card gives customers the ability to improve performance for both LAN and remote users," says Ross Manire, 3Com Carrier Systems senior vice president.

The EdgeServer Pro card occupies three slots in 3Com's Total Control Remote Access Concentrator, a 16-slot chassis that integrates channel banks, DSU/CSUs, modems, ISDN equipment, routers and terminal servers in a single platform. The card sports a 200-MHz Pentium Pro processor (upgradable to a dual-processor configuration), 64 MB of RAM (upgradable to 1 GB of RAM) and dual 2-GB mirrored hard drives. Storage can be extended to external drives via an ultrawide SCSI-3 connection as well. The card, running Windows NT Server 4.0, can support up to 256 concurrent users.

Because the Total Control Remote Access Concentrator features a 32-bit wide, 1-Gbps capacity packet bus, users can currently transfer packets at 320 Mbps from the modem, PRI cards and T1 cards through the EdgeServer Pro and into the network LAN. 3Com expects to boost this rate considerably in the future. Another performance boost arrives from the PPP coprocessing capabilities inherent in 3Com's modems. Each modem in the Total Control platform features its own 80186 processor that executes part of the PPP stack, freeing up the EdgeServer Pro to route calls and handle network requests.

By making its latest EdgeServer Pro card available with Windows NT, 3Com is poised to capitalize on an overall recent trend in remote access, says Virginia Brooks, analyst with the Aberdeen Group (Boston). "The movement in remote access for the RAS market has been towards the capabilities Microsoft has put into NT 4.0's remote access. If you're going to be a player in this market, you have to capitalize on NT," explains Brooks, who says that smaller IT environments are taking advantage of NT's RAS capabilities simply because Microsoft included it with the operating system. "Microsoft built remote access into their servers on the premise that if you've got it, you'll use it, and smaller environments are taking advantage of it."

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