Data Connection Strengthens GMPLS Offering with End-to-End LSP Recovery.

New Feature Available with DC-RSVP-TE Signaling Solution Enables Enhanced Protection and Service Differentiation for Optical Networks

LONDON -- Data Connection Limited (DCL), the world's leading independent provider of communications protocol software, has released enhancements to the optical extensions of its DC-RSVP-TE solution. Data Connection's latest release of DC-RSVP-TE includes full support of end-to-end (e2e) label switched path (LSP) protection and restoration as per the IETF's draft-ietf-ccamp-gmpls-recovery-e2e-signaling specification.

DC-RSVP-TE and Data Connection's related optical control plane products are utilized by the majority of the optical equipment manufacturers in the networking industry. The e2e LSP recovery feature, which enables full LSP recovery from ingress node to egress node of a GMPLS network, provides the following benefits to implementers of the technology.

* Significant reductions in engineering costs, project risk, and time to market compared to in-house development.

* Product and service differentiation through enhanced LSP recovery capabilities.

* Architectural flexibility, as a variety of protection schemes are supported including 1+1, 1:N, pre-planned rerouting (including shared--mesh), and full rerouting.

* Industry compliance and interoperability, as all of Data Connection's products are based on the latest specifications from the relevant industry organizations.

Data Connection's implementation of e2e recovery includes many advanced features that enable optical equipment manufacturers to further enhance their product offerings. These features include the following.

* High Availability. The characteristics of both working and backup LSPs are recovered using Graceful Restart (RFC 3473) and also replicated using DCL's Fault Tolerance for DC-RSVP-TE. This allows the creation of highly available system architectures and is utilized for hot software upgrade and downgrade.

* Ease of use. Backup LSPs can be automatically provisioned based on the establishment of a primary LSP. Manual provisioning is also available.

* Flexible resource sharing. In certain e2e recovery schemes the backup LSP may be shared for additional traffic. DCL provides the ability to override resource sharing via custom per-LSP criteria settings.

* Multiple provisioning options. DCL's e2e recovery supports both uni- and bi-directional LSPs. Furthermore, after a failure has been resolved, users have the ability to revert back to the original working LSP.

Data Connection's end-to-end recovery feature for GMPLS is available immediately. Please contact [e-mail] for more information.

About Data Connection

Data Connection Limited (DCL) is the leading independent developer and supplier of Unicast and Multicast IP Routing, MPLS, SIP, MGCP/Megaco, SBC, ATM, and SNA portable products, as well as Web Conferencing, Voicemail, Unified Messaging, and Directory applications. The company's MetaSwitch division supplies industry-leading IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) switching and applications solutions for both packet and circuit-switched networks. Its widely deployed call agent, media/signaling gateway and application server platform supports a full range of legacy Class 4/5 capabilities and hosted unified communications services, and scales from a few hundred to millions of subscribers in both integrated and distributed configurations.

Customers include the world's largest software and hardware vendors, including Cisco, IBM, Lucent, and Microsoft, and major telecommunications service providers such as AT&T, BT, France Telecom and Verizon. With over 300 employees, Data Connection is headquartered in London, UK with US offices in Alameda, CA, Boxborough, MA, Dallas, TX and Reston, VA. For more information, please see www.dataconnection.com and www.metaswitch.com.