Greenfield will allow the company to add metro Ethernet to its offerings Cisco Systems Inc. will add switch-silicon vendor Greenfield Networks Inc. to its arsenal for metro Ethernet, a technology many service providers are now rolling out for business customers.Privately held Greenfield, founded in 2000, makes processors that can handle advanced functions in Ethernet switches and are positioned for carrier Ethernet networks. It is headed by Bill Rossi, former head of Cisco’s wireless networking unit, and several other ex-Cisco executives. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.Metro Ethernet extends the familiar LAN technology out to a regionwide scale. Service providers are using it to offer high-speed business services with flexible bandwidth and an interface that enterprise network staffs already understand. Ethernet also generally costs less than traditional carrier network technologies, proponents say. Cisco is already a major player in metro Ethernet. Greenfield’s technology is complementary and will be integrated with Cisco’s own, helping the company bring out new carrier-class features more quickly, Cisco said. Greenfield’s products support features such as packet prioritization, guaranteed bandwidth, MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) and IPV6 (Internet Protocol, Version 6).Greenfield’s chips are configurable, one of several factors that will help Cisco introduce new features on switches in the future, said Rob Salvagno, a director on Cisco’s corporate business development team. Different configurations of the same hardware design can allow a chip to process packets in different ways, said Steve Fu, a corporate business development manager at Cisco.Initially, Cisco aims to integrate Greenfield technology in fixed-configuration and modular switches, Salvagno said. Cisco has many products in the metro Ethernet area and sees rapid growth there, he said. “We’re excited about Greenfield because we’re excited about the metro Ethernet market,” Salvagno said.Greenfield is based in Sunnyvale, California, and has 60 employees there and in Bangalore, India. With regulatory approvals, the deal should close in the second quarter of Cisco’s 2007 fiscal year, which ends January. The employees and products will be integrated into Cisco’s Ethernet and Wireless Technology Group.Greenfield will wind down its relationships with other system vendors and has worked out transition plans with them, according to Cisco. One vendor that has announced it was a Greenfield customer is Huawei-3Com Co. Ltd., the joint venture between 3Com Corp. and Chinese networking giant Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. Huawei-3Com said in April 2005 it would use the Greenfield’s Packetry chipset in an upcoming next generation of high-end Ethernet switches. Technology Industry