Santa Clara, Calif. -- Carnival Cruise Lines, Inc. has re-designed the
backbone network of the company's newly expanded Miami headquarters using
3Com CELLplex 7000 Ethernet to Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) switches. 
The new network is based on 3Com's Transcend Network framework. Carnival also
is using 3Com's Transcend Enterprise Manager network management solution to
monitor and manage mission-critical applications such as the cruise line's
reservation system.

  Implemented this summer, Carnival's ATM infrastructure is providing
communications demanded by growth such as the 1996 launch of two new ships:
the 2,040-passenger Inspiration and the 3,400-passenger Carnival Destiny. 
Carnival plans to debut two additional ships in 1998 and another in 1999. 
These and other developments, said Doug Eney, Carnival's director of systems
and technology, will significantly increase network traffic and could
potentially raise the number of corporate users to 5,000 by the year 2000.

  Carnival's 3Com-based ATM network is initially supporting 1,200 users in
the cruise line headquarters' new 225,000 square foot addition, as well as
150 information systems and program development users in its pre-existing
200,000 square foot facility. Selected over ATM systems from four major ATM
vendors, the CELLplex switches according to Eney, provide "unmatched
flexibility and price/performance" for delivering the cruise line's
administrative, financial, reservations and marketing applications. These
applications are based on roughly 50 multivendor servers, including a Unisys
2200/900 enterprise server that processes more than 750,000 business
transactions per day, including cruise and airline reservations, as well as
pre-and post-cruise land vacation packages.

  Designed to augment the company's pre-existing shared Ethernet/FDDI
backbone network, the four-module Ethernet/ATM CELLplex switches by contrast,
deliver 10 Mbps switched Ethernet workgroup connections to the edge of
Carnival's network where users reside. They provide a high speed 155 megabit
per second (Mbps) ATM backbone at the company's data center where high
traffic volumes aggregate. 

  Located in Carnival's new data center, four fully meshed 16 to 32-port 
High-Function CELLplex 7000 switches with redundant switching engines form
Carnival's ATM backbone. A pair of redundant 3Com NETBuilder II routers using
LAN emulation provides the link from the ATM backbone to the firm's
pre-existing FDDI ring. The data center also houses two additional CELLplex
7000 switches, each with four full duplex OC-3 155 Mbps links for the ATM
backbone.

  The two data center CELLplex switches provide switched 10 Mbps Ethernet
connections to the majority of Carnival's 50 servers. The CELLplex switches
are also are delivering multiple 155 Mbps connections to servers which
Carnival soon plans to populate with 3Com ATMLinkz interface cards. One of
the initial ATM connections is to Carnival's strategic StorageTek WANStore
enterprise back-up server, which mirrors the firm's daily transactions. 

  "Previously, the StorageTek server saturated our FDDI backbone," said John
Masseria, Carnival's manager of technical support. "Now, with the CELLplex
switches, we're dramatically increasing available bandwidth to backup our
transactions. Long-term, we've gained a migration path to connect our primary
servers in virtual LANs that will provide universal access to users without
the need to use a router." 

  Carnival also is gaining higher performance by using ATM ports on the
CELLplex high-function switches to create redundant links to two workgroup
CELLplex 7000 ATM switches located on each floor of the six-story addition. 
Each workgroup CELLplex switch has an OC-3 155 Mbps ATM downlink to backbone
and an OC-3 connection patched on fiber to the other side of the building. 
This provides diverse routing of two ATM links to redundant CELLplex 7000
backbone switches.  

  The CELLplex switches are also are equipped with 3Com 7400 Ethernet/ATM
boundary switching module, creating 36 switched Ethernet ports per CELLplex
module for desktop connectivity, or 144 ports total per switch, plus up
to four ATM ports per chassis. The configuration acts as a non-blocking
switch for Carnival's data center and enables users on different Ethernet
ports on different CELLplex switches to communicate.

  "The CELLplex switch can serve as a 16 or 32-port ATM switch using ATMLink
interface cards or as a combination edge device and ATM backbone switch using
the 7400 cards," said Masseria. "Either way, the 3Com ATM switch ensures that
our users get the bandwidth they need to transact their business-critical
applications, and our network backbone has the speed we require to swiftly
move information to our data center."