Small Tree offers free trial of Mac OS X link aggregation for G4 and G5 servers

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. -- Small Tree Communications, a Midwestern company building cross-platform network adapters and tools with a focus on Mac OS X, has announced a free trial of its link aggregation product.

Link aggregation, an implementation of the IEEE 802.3ad standard, combines multiple Ethernet ports on a computer into one virtual interface, combining the individual ports' bandwidth to produce a high-speed data channel with built-in redundancy. Small Tree remains the only company providing link aggregation for Apple servers, leaving it looking across the platform divide at established PC behemoths for its competition. Small Tree president Corky Seeber has expressed interest in expanding the role of Apple servers in enterprise networking.

The company also provides multi-port Ethernet cards, which can be used with link aggregation, and gigabit Ethernet cards.