2/2/98 CommunicationsWeek 8 (see BOLD
1998 WL 2379990
InternetWeek
Copyright 1998 CMP Publications Inc.
Monday, February 2, 1998
700
News & Analysis
Breaking Barriers
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Start-up Netcore plans a terabit switch router; other vendors to follow suit
Saroja Girishankar
Start-up NetCore Systems Inc. is building an ultra high-end switch
router that promises to handle network traffic at terabit speeds.
Netcore's Everest will reportedly switch or route more than a billion
packets per second either as ATM cells or IP packets.
ISPs, carriers and multinational conglomerates are already candidates
for such a product. Mushrooming Internet traffic has service providers
hunting for backbone devices that can prevent potential network
bottlenecks.
"It is vital that we find routing and switching products that support
higher bandwidths such as OC-48 [and OC-192] to handle exploding network
traffic," said Alan Taffel, vice president at Uunet Technologies Inc.,
one of the largest ISPs. [KORN: This is great for the GBX550]
A host of start-ups, populated by entrepreneurial talent from Bay
Networks, Cisco, Cascade Communications, now part of Ascend
Communications, and other networking vendors, are developing the
high-end devices. But industry heavyweights such as Cisco and Ascend do
not even get mentioned in the terabit and similar high-end spaces.
The small band of pioneers includes Avici Systems Inc., Argon Networks
Inc., formerly called GigaPacket Networks Inc., Juniper Networks Inc.
and Nexabit Networks. Avici and Juniper are IP router makers whereas
Netcore and Argon produce combination ATM switch and IP router devices.
Sources close to Netcore said the switch lets IP packet and ATM cell
traffic flow over the same physical WAN interface. This would
significantly reduce the number of WAN pipes required.
The sources said the device, expected to roll out in the third
quarter, will support 640 Gbps and have 64 OC-48 ports. Later versions
will use wave division multiplexing and handle traffic at
multiterabit-per-second speeds. Quality-of-service features and SNMP
management support will be available, along with redundancy for every
routing path.
Frank Dzubeck, president of consultancy Communications Network
Architects Inc., warns that none of these products are ready for prime
time. "The question is whether they will be ready when they are needed,"
he said.
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