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Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minuteAt CeBIT 1999, Nortel Networks presented an expanded Accelar switching-and-routing architecture: the high-end Accelar 8000 for campus and network aggregation, alongside Accelar 700 server switches developed with IPivot for application-aware load balancing. Nortel framed the products around policy-controlled traffic, quality of service, and resilient access to server farms.
What Nortel announced at CeBIT
In a March 17, 1999 report from Hannover, EDN described Nortel’s plans to expand the Accelar family following its acquisition of Bay Networks. The announcement combined two related but distinct products: the Accelar 8000, a high-end switch-router, and the Accelar 700 family, server switches based on an IPivot relationship.
A contemporaneous Computing overview of CeBIT 99 characterized the 8000 as integrating data, telephony, and video. It was intended to support a two-tier campus design, aggregating risers and servers while connecting to metropolitan- and wide-area networks.
What was the Accelar 8000?
The Accelar 8000 was Nortel’s high-capacity aggregation platform, built around a packet-classification ASIC whose technology had roots in Rapid City Communications, acquired by Bay Networks in 1997. Nortel’s reported aim was to inspect and classify traffic, then apply policies such as quality-of-service controls to switched IP and voice services.
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Performance claims reported in 1999
EDN reported the following figures as Nortel product specifications. They are historical manufacturer claims, not independent benchmark results.
| Accelar specification | Reported figure | Qualification |
|---|---|---|
| Switching capacity, Accelar 8000 | 256 Gbits/s | Nortel figure reported by EDN in 1999; independent test conditions were not stated. Source |
| Switching capacity, Accelar 1200 | 15 Gbits/s | Nortel figure reported by EDN in 1999; independent test conditions were not stated. Source |
| IP packet processing | Up to 200 million packets per second | Nortel figure reported by EDN in 1999, not an independently measured result. Source |
| Classification layers | MAC, IP, or TCP port | EDN’s description of the classification capability in 1999. Source |
| AXC ASIC flow handling | Up to 32,000 flows | Nortel figure reported by EDN in 1999. Source |
| Hardware queues | Up to eight for every port | Nortel figure reported by EDN in 1999. Source |
The figures describe different aspects of the system: switching capacity is not the same measure as packet-processing rate, and neither number alone establishes application performance. Nortel executive Basil Alwan said the design goal was not only visibility at high aggregate rates, but also inspection deep enough to determine application-layer details of packet flows.
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How the architecture handled policy and availability
Nortel’s broader strategy was policy-driven networking: classify traffic and use that information to guide service treatment. The company connected this approach with QoS, secure VPN provisioning, and reliable access to server farms. The Accelar 8000 was positioned as an aggregation point for switched IP and voice services rather than solely as a conventional standalone router.
Redundancy and gateway failover
Nortel described redundant switching fabrics and power supplies. It also cited Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP), which can provide a hot-standby gateway so that another router takes over if the active gateway fails. Alwan said VRRP could provide service availability for server farms. These are design intentions described in the 1999 announcement, not a claim about present-day support or deployment.
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Management and policy tools
Nortel director of product marketing J. Craig Easley said Optivity was intended to become a multivendor management system. Nortel planned policy-driven QoS features using the NetID data format, with later security features planned for Optivity Policy Services 2.0. The announcement therefore tied device-level packet handling to a management layer intended to span equipment from multiple vendors; it did not establish how broadly that interoperability worked in practice.
What IPivot added to the Accelar line
The Accelar 700 family was the server-switch part of the announcement, not another name for the 8000. Nortel planned to bring IPivot’s load-balancing bandwidth-shaper architecture into these switches. Computing described the joint development as targeting response-time-based load balancing and application-aware traffic handling for server farms.
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In practical terms, the 700 family addressed how requests and traffic were distributed among servers, while the 8000 addressed high-capacity aggregation and policy treatment across campus and network connections. The two product lines fit Nortel’s stated focus on application-aware networking, but they served different roles.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why the 1999 announcement mattered—and what it does not prove
The announcement illustrates how enterprise networking was being framed at the time: combine switching and routing, classify traffic by protocol fields, prioritize selected flows, and maintain access to server resources when a gateway or component fails. CeBIT’s coverage also emphasized integrating data, telephony, and video in a campus architecture.
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The reported specifications should be read in their historical context. EDN reported Nortel’s product claims, but the available coverage does not provide an independent, like-for-like benchmark against Cisco or other vendors. It also does not establish that Accelar hardware is currently supported or readily available. The figures are useful for understanding what Nortel said the platform was designed to do in 1999, not for evaluating a modern network purchase.
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