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PACKET DESIGN'S ROUTE EXPLORER WILL PROVIDE VIEW INTO 'WORLD'S FASTEST NETWORK' AT SC2002 CONFERENCE
Layer 3 Route Analysis Appliance Displays Network's Routing Changes As They Happen
PALO ALTO, Calif., Nov. 18, 2002 - A route analysis appliance from Packet Design CNS will help ensure that the 40-gigabit-per-second network running at this year's International Conference for High Performance Computing and Communications (SC2002) - billed as the "world's fastest network" - is operating correctly.
The Packet Design CNS Route Explorer, a tool that lets network operators look into the IP network "cloud" and view the actual routing paths being traversed by network traffic, will play a key role in this year's SCinet, the network built to support SC2002 at the Baltimore Convention Center Nov. 16-22. Two Route Explorer units provided to the conference by Packet Design will be deployed in the SCinet network operations center during the show. They will be used to visualize, diagnose and analyze routing paths on the network backbone and various sub-networks interconnected by technologies as diverse as 10-gigabit Ethernet, OC-48c and OC-192c Packet Over SONET.
As a layer 3 analysis tool, Route Explorer (http://www.route-explorer.com) operates by "listening" to the network's routing control plane, automatically building a routing topology map, logging routing events in a local database and creating a picture of the information. Any changes to the routing topology - caused, for example, by a network outage - pop up on the user's display within seconds of their occurrence. An animated historical playback and analysis feature lets the operator diagnose inconsistent and hard-to-detect problems such as intermittent "route flaps," which can severely degrade network performance. He can then "rewind" and "replay" the topology map from any point in time, observing the impact of individual routing events on the network map.
A Complete Picture of the Network's Functioning
Bill Nickless, SCinet vice chairman, said, "SCinet has never been a more ambitious undertaking than at this year's conference. As a showcase of high speeds and multiple connection types, it has to run flawlessly. And as a temporary conference network, it has to be built very quickly. Route Explorer will assist the SCinet operations team in understanding our layer 3 network in real time and viewing changes as they occur so problems can be addressed quickly. In addition, historical route data logged by Route Explorer will be used to pinpoint past routing anomalies so changes can be made before a failure occurs."
Malay Thaker, Packet Design CNS general manager, said, "A complex IP network using high-speed routing to link multiple distinct sites is precisely the kind of leading-edge model that shows off the advanced capabilities of Route Explorer. With traditional network monitoring tools, SCinet operators would be able to get only isolated notifications of problems with individual devices or inter-device links. Route Explorer gives them a complete picture of the network's functioning. It's like having a road map that can show you where the construction sites and detours are at any given time."
About SCInet and SC2002
SCinet will offer more than 40 Gbps of external network capacity, more than 50,000 times the speed of a typical home broadband connection. Eight separate external connections, ranging in speed from 155 Mbps to 10 Gbps, will be carried on separate wavelengths via dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) into the convention center on a single fiber-optic pair. SCinet will deploy 57 miles of fiber-optic cable on the show floor to support 150 individual connections to exhibitors.
SC2002 participants are focused on the areas of high-performance networking and computing, data analysis and management, visualization and computational modeling. The conference is sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Computer Society and the Association for Computing Machinery's Special Interest Group on Computer Architecture. For more information, see http://www.sc-conference.org/sc2002.
About Packet Design CNS
Packet Design CNS, Inc., is the sales and marketing arm of Packet Design LLC, which was founded in May 2000 to develop technologies that enhance the performance, scalability and manageability of the Internet infrastructure for telecom carriers and enterprises. Packet Design conducts research and development through the product prototype stage, with marketing done through separate venture-funded spinoff companies (e.g., wireless LAN management vendor Vernier Networks); technology licensing agreements; or directly through Packet Design CNS, whose first product is Route Explorer.
Packet Design is the fourth networking company started by husband-and-wife entrepreneurs Judy Estrin and Bill Carrico, who founded Bridge Communications in 1981, Network Computing Devices in 1988 and Precept Software in 1995. Estrin served as Cisco Systems' chief technology officer from 1998-2000. Packet Design has raised $29 million in private funding from Foundation Capital, Sun Microsystems and individual investors. For more information, visit http://www.packetdesign.com and http://www.route-explorer.com.
© 2005. Packet Design Inc.
