Alteon: Same Name, Upgraded Technology, Different Parents

Written by Charlene OHanlon_2
November 10, 2009

When Nortel declared bankruptcy last year and started selling off its assets with a vengeance, resellers and customers alike were left with a lot of fear and confusion regarding the flailing company’s product lines. So the collective sigh of relief was audible when Radware -- a company long familiar with the channel -- picked up the Alteon line of application delivery products. Here's why.

alteon-radware When Nortel declared bankruptcy last year and started selling off its assets with a vengeance, resellers and customers alike were left with a lot of fear and confusion regarding the flailing company’s product lines. So the collective sigh of relief was audible when Radware — a company long familiar with the channel — picked up the Alteon line of application delivery products. Here’s why.

Radware has made good on its promise to bring back Alteon, with an expanded product offering that runs the same OS as the previous versions and utilizes a “pay-as-you-grow” scalability model, according to the company.

The Alteon 5412 is a carrier-grade switch designed for heavy-duty enterprise applications such as data center environments. The switch’s sweet spot is in Layer 4-7 applications, the company notes.

“The Alteon 5412 is a high-end platform with 20Gig application switching. It also supports the on Demand concept wherein customers can start using it with 8Gig license and scale from there to 12Gig, 16Gig and 20Gig eventually,” said Radware CEO Roy Zisapel. “In addition, the platform is ready for application acceleration capabilities that will be added in the next version like caching, compression and SSL optimization.”

The new line will be available through Radware’s channel partners, which have grown in ranks as a result of the Alteon acquisition. Zisapel noted Westcon, Packet Fusion, Optivor, Ronco and Pomeroy as some former Nortel partners who have migrated to Radware.

The 5412 is a welcome addition to the existing Alteon line, for sure. But what’s been made apparent by this announcement is Radware saw the real value in the Alteon line — not as technology it could absorb into its own line of switches, but as a separate offering it could continue to sell through the channel. The prospect of having more choices is definitely more appealing to the channel and its customers. Props to Radware for recognizing this.

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