FRAMINGHAM (04/10/2000) - Cisco Systems Inc. last week announced software aimed at easing the management of campus network environments and a high-density switch that promises to save customers money on new hardware.

The firm announced CiscoWorks 2000 LAN Management Solution, a package that will give users a single browser-based view of switching and routing elements on a campus net. The suite will offer a picture of the LAN topology, as well as detect incipient problems when running key network applications, the company says.

Among other components, the LAN Management package contains the new Campus Manager suite, which handles Layer 2 device discovery and mapping. Campus Manager can detect and replicate the physical and logical connections of up to 1,000 devices, Cisco says.

The company is also introducing Content Flow Monitor, which will monitor the performance of Cisco devices handling Web server load balancing. For instance, the monitor can view a Cisco 7200 router to ensure that key Net business applications are being prioritized properly.

LAN Management Solution can share data with other CiscoWorks 2000 products and will be available this month. It starts at $14,995.

Cisco will also offer a high-density Ethernet switch that users could deploy as an alternative to buying multiple stacked switches. The pizza box-sized Catalyst 2980G switch will fit into campus wiring and support 80 10/100M-bps Ethernet ports along with two full-duplex, Gigabit Interface Converter-based Gigabit Ethernet slots, with a total throughput capacity of 24G-bps. The strategy behind the Catalyst 2980G is to provide all the Ethernet switching small and midsize customers want without the need for additional modules, cables or other interconnections.

Cisco's Catalyst Mid-Market LAN Switching Solution is a family of stackable and stand-alone Layer 2 and Layer 3 switches with pricing and simplicity that Cisco hopes will appeal to companies with 250 to 1,000 employees.