Compaq Computer Corporation commissioned The Tolly Group to evaluate the performance of the Compaq Netelligent 8500 Communications Platform when routing IP & IPX traffic. The benchmarks were run using three different WAN environments: Frame Relay, ISDN, and leased lines. The performance of the Compaq Netelligent 8500 was also examined when routing traffic between local Ethernet segments.

The test results show that the Netelligent 8500 Communications Platform delivers near wire-speed throughput when routing IP or IPX traffic across the various WAN environments. Tests of WAN compression showed an effective data compression ratio of up to 2.4 to 1. LAN-to-LAN routing tests between local Ethernet segments showed wire-speed throughput for both single and dual traffic streams. Testing used ISDN, Frame Relay, and leased lines for the various WAN environments.