Force10 Adds Director of R&E

Force10 Networks today announced that it has named Debbie Montano director of research and education alliances. With more than 18 years of experience developing national IP and optical networks and forging alliances with industry groups and networking partners, Montano will direct and develop Force10's partnerships with organizations throughout the high performance research and education community. "Debbie's comprehensive knowledge of the research and education community, together with her proven ability to execute at the highest level will be significant assets to Force10 as we continue to expand our market presence," said Mark Cooper, Force10's senior vice president of worldwide sales. "Force10 has a strong history of working closely with research and education organizations to further stretch the boundaries of network performance, and Debbie will help us build on that legacy." Montano has been deeply involved with the research and education community throughout her career. At National LambdaRail, she deployed a nationwide optical network for US research universities. As advanced Internet initiatives director at Qwest, she was instrumental in developing and implementing the nationwide Internet2 Abilene Network, which connects over 200 universities in all 50 states. Montano has collaborated and developed partnerships with both leading regional research and education networking organizations and government-sponsored projects such as the DARPA Next Generation Internet Supernet project and the Energy Sciences Network. Leveraging her extensive knowledge of the research and education community, Montano will develop new alliances to complement Force10's existing partnership with Internet2 and to expand its already significant presence in the community. This week Force10 announced that the E-Series was selected by Internet2 for its Hybrid Optical and Packet Infrastructure (HOPI) network, which will examine scalable next-generation architectures that can better enable on-demand networking. The HOPI network will leverage packet technology from Internet2's Abilene network and optical technology from the National LambdaRail network. "Force10 has established a sterling reputation in the research and education community by delivering the unshakable reliability and high performance these environments demand," said Montano. "As the community continues to develop cutting edge technology, architectures and applications, Force10 is uniquely positioned to grow with the performance needs of these organizations." Montano has also held positions at Kenan Systems, Hathaway Corporation and McData Corporation. She holds a BS in computer science and engineering from MIT. Over the last two years Force10 has significantly increased its presence in research and national laboratory environments, including the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), the California Institute of Technology, the San Diego Supercomputer Center, Argonne National Laboratory and the Cornell Theory Center.