Packet Design's Route Explorer Gains Support for BGP Confederations; Route Analytics Tool Also Emails Daily Status Reports to Users.

PALO ALTO, Calif. -- The newest software release for Route Explorer, Packet Design's industry-leading route analytics appliance, offers support for BGP "confederations," a technique used to increase the scalability of large IP networks.

With Release 3.5, Route Explorer supports both of the common methods used by service providers and large enterprises to organize their BGP networks: "route reflectors," which the appliance has supported since 2003, and now confederations.

Route Explorer 3.5 also allows users to set up daily network status reports that will be automatically emailed to them, so they can assess their network's health and stability at a glance.

First Route Analytics System to Support BGP Confederations

BGP confederations, an extension to the Border Gateway Protocol, were conceived as a method for subdividing the largest BGP networks into smaller domains, typically by geographical or functional groups of BGP routers. Creating a confederation of domains reduces the total number of router-to-router connections ("peerings") each router must maintain, in turn reducing the routers' CPU and memory demands. Besides allowing more user control over routing policies, this compartmentalization can confine potential problems triggered by routing instability to a single domain, rather than being propagated throughout the confederation.

Jeff Raice, Packet Design executive vice president of marketing and business development, said, "Network-layer visibility is a critical management requirement for large, meshed networks, and many of the largest of those networks are organized using BGP confederations. With release 3.5, Route Explorer becomes the first route analytics tool to recognize multiple member autonomous systems (AS's) within a BGP confederation, and to provide routing analysis and monitoring on both a holistic, network-wide basis and a per-member AS basis."

This can be extremely useful, he said, if two companies merge and want to consolidate their networks in an orderly, non-urgent fashion. "Rather than scrambling to unite the two networks immediately into a single full mesh, they can set up each network as a separate member AS within a larger confederation. Each member AS can be managed as before, with its familiar processes, policies and tools, while the combined network will appear as a single AS to the rest of the Internet.

"With its existing support for BGP root-cause analysis and BGP MPLS/VPN management, Route Explorer continues to be at the forefront of BGP management technology."

Daily Network Status Reports 'Pushed' to User

Route Explorer 3.5 can now be set up to "push" daily email reports containing information about the network being monitored and about the general status of the Route Explorer itself. Presenting a summary of data available in the more extensive and detailed Route Explorer reports that network operators can access proactively, the daily emailed report shows the state of the network at a glance. The report, which includes information on all supported protocols (OSPF, EIGRP, IS-IS and BGP), identifies the parts of the network being monitored, the most active routers, the links and prefixes that are "flapping" or changing most often, and other key factors affecting network health and stability. Report-generation time and recipient list can be determined by the user. This feature complements Route Explorer's ability to send asynchronous notifications via SNMP traps or Syslog messages when unusual network events occur.

Pricing and Availability

Route Explorer 3.5, available immediately, is priced from $20,000 to $100,000 (U.S. list). A fully configured unit supports an unlimited number of routers and all four routing protocols (OSPF, IS-IS, EIGRP, and BGP with root-cause analysis). A version of Route Explorer for managing MPLS VPNs is also available, starting at $150,000. Existing systems can be field-upgraded with the new software free of charge for customers under support contracts.

About Route Explorer

Sitting in the network infrastructure as if it were a router (though it forwards no traffic), Route Explorer "listens" to IP routing-protocol exchanges, creates an accurate layer 3 topology map and analyzes routing events to let network engineers pinpoint routing problems at a glance and resolve them quickly. All routing events are logged in a local data store, from which they can be analyzed and visualized in real time, or replayed later for forensic analysis or planning purposes. Route Explorer provides a single end-to-end view of the routing topology across protocol and domain boundaries.

About Packet Design, Inc.

Packet Design, Inc., develops a family of network appliances that improves the reliability, efficiency and predictability of IP networks by providing network-layer (layer 3) visibility into them. Packet Design, Inc., was spun out in March 2003 from Packet Design, LLC, the fourth networking company started by husband-and-wife entrepreneurs Judy Estrin and Bill Carrico, who previously founded Bridge Communications, Network Computing Devices and Precept Software. After receiving seed funding from Packet Design, LLC, Packet Design, Inc., raised $14 million in Series B funding from Advanced Technology Ventures, Mayfield Fund, Allegis Capital, Masthead Venture Partners and Packet Design, LLC. For more information, visit http://www.packetdesign.com.