BUSINESS WIRE

July 25, 2003; McLean, Virginia

Isocore today announced the release of the scalability and performance requirements survey results obtained from various service providers supporting the Isocore Internetworking Laboratory activities.

The survey covered scalability and performance requirements for various Internet routing and signaling protocols such as Border Gateway Protocol (BGP), Intermediate System-Intermediate System (IS-IS) protocol, Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) protocol, and Label Distribution Protocol (LDP) as well as applications such as Layer 3 MPLS based VPNs, Layer 2 Point-to-Point MPLS based VPNs (based on the IETF Martini drafts), Virtual Private LAN Services (VPLS), and MPLS Traffic Engineering (TE).

The published requirements documents are only available to Isocore Internetworking Lab members. The survey results were discussed during the Isocore sponsored meeting with its member technical representatives held last month at Isocore headquarters in McLean, Virginia. Isocore Internetworking Lab plans to use these scalability and performance requirements as reference points in future testing and certification activities.

"As MPLS enters into a growth phase in the technology lifecycle, the issues of scalability and performance have become paramount requirements for adoption in mission critical production networks" said Daniel Awduche of MCI. "It is therefore noteworthy that Isocore has developed a systematic process to validate these important characteristics in a multi-vendor test-bed".

"While Protocol Interoperability is very important to Cisco, tying that into real world scenarios will provide significant value to vendors," said Azhar Sayeed, MPLS product manager at Cisco Systems. "This is a good step in establishing an operational baseline and learn about the corner conditions that may occur in Interoperability."

Isocore members will incorporate some aspects of these requirements into the Network and Service Interworking Interoperability demonstration that will take place in conjunction with the forthcoming MPLS 2003 International Conference. The interoperability demonstration will be open to public (with invitation only) and will be held at Isocore headquarters on October 29.

About Isocore: The goal of Isocore's Internetworking Lab is to advance internetworking through validation, conformance, and interoperability testing, and to promote development and deployment of new technologies. Isocore's Internetworking Lab is supported by major service providers, router and test equipment vendors.

About MPLS 2003 International Conference: MPLS 2003 is the premier event on the subject of Multi Protocol Label Switching and its associated technologies. MPLS 2003 is sponsored and supported by leaders of the Internet industry from both Service Providers and Vendor Community. Through MPLS 2003 sponsorships, companies showcase their latest MPLS and optical products and services during the conference. For more information about the program and sponsors of the event please visit www.mpls2003.com.

For more information about Isocore's Internetworking Lab visit the web site at http://www.isocore.com.

Media Contact:
Vincent Dean (703) 556-4939 or vdean@isocore.com