CRAWLEY, England, September 15 /PRNewswire/ --

- Spirent TestCenter(TM) FCoE Allows Equipment Providers, Enterprises to Validate Performance of Data Centres

Spirent Communications plc (LSE: SPT), a global provider of performance analysis and service management solutions, today announced the launch of Spirent TestCenter(TM) Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) Solution, the industry's first test product to validate the performance characteristics of FCoE systems, an emerging technology for enterprise data centre networks. A demonstration of this FCoE solution is being showcased at the Spirent Proof of Concept (SPoC) Labs and Collaboration Centres in Beijing, London and Sunnyvale.

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FCoE is a proposed industry standard designed to extend data connectivity in addressing current and future business requirements. FCoE maintains existing management paradigm and tools for storage and will serve as a bridge between storage networking and other next-generation data centre networks. Initially, FCoE offers SAN and systems administrators the benefit of being able to reduce the number of physical network interfaces in the server, which reduces costs and simplifies management. FCoE utilizes the mission-critical characteristics of Fibre Channel technology and works with existing infrastructure and applications.

The Spirent TestCenter FCoE solution helps assess the interaction of storage and data centre traffic over a common interface. Built on Spirent's Fibre Channel hardware and software expertise, the introduction of its FCoE solution demonstrates the company's market leadership and commitment to advancing the development and deployment of the latest technologies. By leveraging its extensive expertise in the Fibre Channel and Ethernet marketplaces, Spirent delivers the most complete product of its kind with the ability to support Layer 2-7 network performance testing with a broad platform specifically designed for multi-play networks and multi-device technologies.

"Brocade is a pioneer who helped create the SAN industry and customers are now turning to us as a strategic and trusted vendor. Specifically, they are asking us to help them evolve their data centres with new technologies in mind while continuing to enjoy the benefits of the most innovative, high-performance data centre fabric technologies available today," said Marty Lans, senior director in the Data Center Infrastructure Division at Brocade. "With the only product capable of pre-testing the performance and interoperability of the FCoE protocol for storage networks, working with Spirent will help ensure that our FCoE solutions will maintain industry-leading latency and loss behaviours and maintain Fibre Channel-like integrity of data connectivity"

"Testing is becoming a strategic imperative for our customers, especially as they consider developing technologies such as FCoE," said Tim Jefferson, general manager for Spirent TestCenter at Spirent Communications. "Spirent is in a unique position to serve this market since we are able extended our knowledge of Fibre Channel and Ethernet testing, and our expertise in the 10-Gigabit arena to develop the most comprehensive solution for testing a superior breed of storage network and data centre solutions."

Test engineers now have the ability to analyze a number of critical occurrences including the encapsulation of a native Fibre Channel frame into an Ethernet frame, the emergence of Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE) to help ensure lossless fabric, and the effect of replacing a Fibre Channel link with MAC addresses in CEE environments. Spirent TestCenter FCoE provides support for FCoE Initialization Protocol (FIP), a control plane protocol, and Priority Flow Control (PFC), the advanced quality of service protocol for Ethernet. Ultimately, users of Spirent's FCoE solution can easily understand latency issues as well as the impact of packets which are dropped and scenarios such as loss of power.

About Spirent Communications plc

Spirent Communications (www.spirentcom.com) is a global provider of integrated performance analysis and service assurance systems that enable the development and deployment of next-generation networking technology such as Internet telephony, broadband services, 3G wireless, global navigation satellite systems, and network security equipment. Spirent Communications' solutions are used by more than 1,700 customers in 30 countries, including the world's largest equipment manufacturers, service providers, enterprises and governments. Based in Sunnyvale, CA, Spirent Communications has 1,300 employees worldwide.

Spirent Communications plc Ordinary shares are traded on the London Stock Exchange (ticker: SPT). The Company operates a Level 1 American Depositary Receipt ("ADR") programme with each ADR representing four Spirent Communications plc Ordinary shares. The ADRs trade in the US over-the-counter ("OTC") market under the symbol SPMYY and the CUSIP number is 84856M209. Spirent Communications' sales to the United States government are made through Spirent Federal Systems Inc. www.spirentfederal.com.

Spirent, Spirent Communications and the Spirent logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Spirent Communications plc. All other trademarks or registered trademarks mentioned herein are held by their respective companies. All rights reserved.

Contact Sailaja Tennati Martin Vickery Spirent Communications Spirent Communications Direct +1-770-432-3225 +44-(0)-1803546617 Mobile +1-240-291-6044 +44-(0)-7894-512262 sailaja.tennati@spirent.com martin.vickery@spirent.com

This document may contain forward-looking statements which are made in good faith and are based on current expectations or beliefs, as well as assumptions about future events. You can sometimes, but not always, identify these statements by the use of a date in the future or such words as "will", "anticipate", "estimate", "expect", "project", "intend", "plan", "should", "may", "assume" and other similar words. By their nature, forward-looking statements are inherently predictive and speculative and involve risk and uncertainty because they relate to events and depend on circumstances that will occur in the future. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which are not a guarantee of future performance and are subject to factors that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this document, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Website: http://www.spirent.com

Sailaja Tennati, +1-770-432-3225, +1-240-291-6044, Sailaja.tennati@spirent.com; or Martin Vickery, +44-(0)-1803546617, +44-(0)-7894 512262, martin.vickery@spirent.com, both of Spirent Communications. Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20080909/CLTU016LOGO