Ixia Announces Industry's First Comprehensive Verification Platform for Resilient Packet Ring Networks.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

CALABASAS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 19, 2002

Ixia (Nasdaq:XXIA), a leading provider of high-speed, multiport network performance analysis and network monitoring systems, introduced today the industry's first comprehensive performance analysis and traffic generation platform for verification of Resilient Packet Ring (RPR) networks.

RPR is a new media access control (MAC) protocol presently being standardized in the IEEE 802.17 working group, with the goal of providing a cost-effective way to transport bursty traffic, such as IP, over ring topologies. RPR systems can address the requirements of metropolitan area networks (MAN) operators with legacy voice-optimized circuit-switched networks, to manage an ever-increasing volume of data traffic in their networks. RPR has the ability to increase bandwidth efficiency and add ease of management to existing SONET/SDH networks.

"As a participating member of the RPR Alliance, Ixia has demonstrated its commitment to RPR technology," said Robert Love, president of the RPR Alliance and vice chair of the IEEE 802.17 working group. "The Ixia platform promotes RPR development and proliferation by delivering a test suite specific to RPR for network equipment manufacturers, carriers, providers, and large enterprise customers to verify their networks."

Ixia's performance analysis solution for RPR is implemented via its OC-48c and OC-192c Packet Over SONET Load Modules (LMOC48 and LMOC192). The RPR test suite allows users not only the flexibility of generating, analyzing and capturing both Data and Control packets exchanged between nodes within an RPR ring environment, but the additional advantage of being able to manipulate and configure the contents of the packets to test a myriad of ring scenarios.

"Ixia's RPR test suite will enable equipment makers to bring RPR products to market quicker with the ability to simulate multiple node networks within a single port configuration," said Colin Ullyott, SONET product manager for Ixia. "Being the first test equipment company in the industry to develop an integrated RPR solution capable of wire-speed RPR packet generation and analysis underscores Ixia's commitment to developing end-to-end testing solutions for next generation networks."

In addition to RPR packet generation and analysis, Ixia has added specific RPR frame statistics including fairness, protection switching, topology discovery and data as well as timeout, header CRC error and payload CRC error statistics, all monitored in real-time. A comprehensive RPR capture menu allows the ability to quickly configure the capture buffer to capture any specific control, data or OAM RPR frames in addition to triggering on various ring control parameters. Ixia also offers a full RPR decode on all captured frames as well as an encode window allowing the ability to view the configured RPR frame before being transmitted.

Product available now.

About Ixia

Ixia (Nasdaq:XXIA) delivers powerful, distributed, multiport traffic generators, and performance/conformance analyzers for wire-speed verification of optical networking equipment, LAN, MAN, WAN, and SAN multilayer switches and routers, and sophisticated routing protocols. Its products utilize a variety of interfaces -- Packet Over SONET, BERT, 10 Gigabit Ethernet, 10/100/1000 Mbps Ethernet, and USB. Ixia's network operations applications address the industry's growing requirements for a higher level of control over network optimization, traffic engineering, traffic profiling, and security. Ixia's analysis solutions are distinguished by their accuracy, reliability, high port density, support for emerging protocol standards, conformance adherence, and adaptability to the industry's constant evolution.

For more information, contact Ixia at 26601 W. Agoura Road, Calabasas, CA 91302; 818/871-1800, Fax: [phone]; Email: [e-mail] or visit our Web Site at http://www.ixiacom.com.