System Delays Slam Gigarouter Start-ups
data.com
Also, a rush toward optical technology at
the network's core is looming as a threat
to the companies even before their first
products hit the streets.
Eighteen months ago, a heady mix of terarouter and gigarouter start-ups
was challenging Cisco to see who would be first to deliver the
megasystems that would push the swelling tide of data packets at the core
of the Internet. Today, the dynamics have shifted.
Many of the start-ups have been acquired; others reportedly face delays as
they wrestle with complex ASICs. What's more, a rush toward optical
technology at the network's core is looming as a threat to the young
companies even before their first products hit the streets.
Three of the seven most closely watched router start-ups have been
acquired as the remainder grapple with silicon delays.
"A key controller ASIC in our platform had to be respun," said Mark
Cree, vice president of marketing at NeoNetworks. "But that doesn't put
us behind any other schedules, because everyone in this space seems to be
having hardware problems."
Joe Kennedy, who recently joined Pluris as CEO, said all players in the
large switch and router market are keeping their cards close to the vest
and are likely having problems, though he characterized the difficulties as
minor.
Avici Systems became the first among the start-ups to show a working
system when it demonstrated its Terabit Switch/Router (TSR) at the
Supercomputing '99 conference earlier this month in Portland, Ore.
While the demo was a milestone, barriers still loom before Avici can
deploy working products. Pete Chadwick, vice president of product
management, said router OEMs may be hesitant to talk about system trials
until several routers move into beta test. Avici has been confident enough
about the TSR's behavior that it has worked with several carriers and
network providers on private trials.
In one of those trials, proponents of the National Transparent Optical
Network, a federally sponsored testbed for linking government labs and
agencies, had pushed for public demonstrations of an optical backbone
using the Avici router. The network's backers were under pressure
fromSandia National Labs and Lawrence Livermore National Labs, which
sought to demonstrate applications on NTON. Without that push,
Chadwick said, Avici may not have shown off its systems quite so early.
"All the start-ups became victims of their own hype by thinking it would be
easy to roll these systems out," said one market analyst who asked not to
be named. "With new verification tools around, many people are expecting
ASICs to be perfect on first-pass silicon. That might be possible in LAN
hubs or servers, but we are talking about a very difficult design problem
here."
The end result of the delays and acquisitions is that San Jose, Calif.-based
Cisco is under less pressure to upgrade its giga switch router line. Cisco
has adopted a slow and steady strategy for expanding feeds and speeds
for the routers used in public network backbones. With the terarouter on
autopilot, Cisco has been aggressive in working on WDM interfaces for
routers and on acquiring such optical specialists as Cerent and Monterey
Networks.
That may prove a smart move. Because carriers are anxious to move to
packet-over-wavelength technologies, some market analysts suggest if
delays keep core routers out of the market too long, optical add-drop
multiplexers or optical cross-connect systems may replace those routers in
the backbone.
Not surprisingly, executives at core router companies strongly reject that
view.
"The integration of optical node and packet routing functions comes down
to a question of economics, and the jury is still out on what kind of
partitioning is most cost-effective," Chadwick said.
Nevertheless, the terarouter start-ups are already tapping optical
technology for key I/O interfaces.
"One factor where the Pluris approach seems radical but may make more
sense in moving to production is the decision to use optical backplane
interconnect wherever possible," said Kennedy of that company.
Copper interconnect becomes impractical for routers that must handle
packet traffic at multiple gigabits per second. |
