BUSINESS WIRE

April 20, 2004; McLean, Virginia

Isocore today announced completion of the first round of 2004 leading-edge code testing of advanced Layer 3 VPN services and link failure detection in the MPLS based networks at its Internetworking Lab. Major vendors successfully validated the co-existence of IPv4/MPLS-only capable nodes in conjunction with IPv6-only and dual-stack routing equipment.

The testing validated the interoperability of the devices supporting advanced Layer 3 VPN applications such as Carrier's Carriers, and Inter-provider VPNs using MPLS/GRE or tunnels. In order to facilitate early adoption of MPLS based VPNs and management of deployed networks, Isocore for the first time included the operations, administration and maintenance (OA&M) requirements for MPLS based networks, in which some of the data plane detection techniques were also tested.

The core of the testbed included TSR/SSR from Avici Systems (NASDAQ: AVCI - News), 12400 Series Internet Routers from Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO - News), and M series routers from Juniper Networks (NASDAQ: JNPR - News), while a scalable multi-service edge was built using 7750-SR from Alcatel (NYSE: ALA - News), 7600 series and 7200 series routers from Cisco Systems, E- and M-series routers from Juniper Networks, SmartEdge 800 Service Gateway System from Redback Networks (NASDAQ: RBAK - News), 8820 from Tellabs (NASDAQ: TLAB - News), and iQ8000 from Quarry Technologies. The test network was also supported by emulators and testing gear from Ixia-1600T (NASDAQ: XXIA - News), Navtel Communications - IW96000 and Spirent Communications - AX/4000 (NYSE: SPM - News)

This event marked the first technology validation and interoperability testing of IETF specification for IPv6 support across MPLS based networks, Inter-Provider VPNs (based on 2547bis), and detecting link failures in MPLS based networks (LSP-ping). For the first time, Layer 3 VPNs were tested with Route-Reflector support, which is of great interest to service providers.

Live demonstration of the results of this testing and some results of other on-going test efforts at Isocore Internetworking Lab will be included at NetWorld+Interop (May 9-13, 2004, Las Vegas) as well as the fifth public demonstration following MPLS 2004 (October 17-19, Washington, DC).

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

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