<P>As the newest member of the CoreBuilder 9000 family, 3Com s eight-slot chassis is based on the same industry-leading platform as the CoreBuilder 9000 16-slot chassis and the CoreBuilder 9000 seven-slot chassis. Ideally suited for high performance data centers with Gigabit Ethernet and multilayer switching, the new eight-slot chassis also offers the perfect design for fault tolerant wiring closets or small to medium sized backbone connectivity. The eight-slot chassis supports all CoreBuilder I/O modules, switching fabric, and management engines. The new chassis takes full advantage of the 48 Gbps (Gigabits per second) switching fabric by distributing eight Gbps of bandwidth to each chassis slot -- providing the perfect complement for the MultiLayer Switch module. </P>