Riverstone Networks Debuts Programmable Hardware Architecture for Evolving Metro Services; First Products Offer Full MPLS Implementation over Gigabit Ethernet

Business Wire, April 23, 2001

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 23, 2001

Riverstone Networks, Inc., (Nasdaq:RSTN), a leader in service creation infrastructure for metropolitan area networks, today debuted its new line-card architecture, centered on a wire-speed, programmable packet-processing engine. Marking a significant advance in metro networking technology, the first line cards to implement the new architecture provide full Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) capabilities over a Gigabit Ethernet interface. Future updates to the packet-processing engine will support VPN technologies such as Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) and IP-IP tunneling, ATM, and frame relay over MPLS. The capabilities and programmable nature of the new line-card architecture, coupled with Riverstone's existing metro area technologies, guarantee the new products a central role in the future of metro network deployments.

"By using a programmable line-card architecture to implement MPLS, Riverstone protects ROI by enabling service providers to upgrade their products in the field as standards evolve," said Kevin Mitchell, directing analyst of service provider networks at Infonetics. "Riverstone's MPLS-enabled products allow established carriers to supplement their current equipment with Ethernet offerings that map switched paths between networks and have high bandwidth performance characteristics."

Creating Services That Generate Revenue

The MPLS capabilities of Riverstone's new line cards are essential to the metro IP service model. MPLS improves on IP-based networks by creating superior VPN capabilities, Quality of Service/Class of Service (QoS/CoS) functionality, and resiliency characteristics hitherto unknown to IP networks without expensive and unwieldy ATM overlays. This makes it a key technology for creating and selling business services.

"Businesses are demanding virtual private networks, virtual leased lines, and transparent LANs, but they want more than just a secure path. We need to guarantee QoS and traffic delivery for latency-sensitive applications," said Carlo Lalomia, chief technology officer of IntelliSpace. "MPLS is a cost-effective, scalable, and manageable means of delivering these in-demand services over public networks."

The Importance for Ethernet Networks

The new line-card architecture is particularly important for service providers who own or are building Ethernet networks. The availability of MPLS over Ethernet now, and advanced tunneling capabilities in the future, will enable service providers with Ethernet networks to attract a broader customer base that might not be possible with just best-effort services. At the same time, Riverstone's continued support of legacy network interfaces guarantees the broadest customer reach possible. The new line-card architecture in effect creates a differentiated pricing strategy for Ethernet service providers, while also allowing them to market and sell new services to existing customers.

"Riverstone's MPLS-based Gigabit Ethernet solutions will play an important role for the distributed aggregation layer in Terabeam's Ethernet-based metro infrastructure," said Don Flynn, Terabeam's vice president of technology development. "Riverstone understands our goal of developing an infrastructure that enables differentiated services that are simple, flexible, and available without waiting for traditional solutions. As we launch our commercial service of providing customers with high-speed broadband Internet and LAN-to-LAN connections that are both easy to implement and immediately scalable, Riverstone's products are a key part of our strategy."

"As the metro evolves to a network based on simple protocols over dark fiber and WDM (wavelength division multiplexing), service providers need infrastructure that offers both a painless migration path from legacy networks and equipment and support for IP service creation and delivery over the wide variety of technologies used in the metro," said David Passmore, research director at The Burton Group. "Since Ethernet is likely to assume a much larger role in future metro networks, MPLS-enabled products from vendors such as Riverstone will allow established carriers to supplement their current networks with Ethernet -- mapping switched paths between networks and sharing similar performance characteristics."

MPLS Product Features

The first products featuring this new architecture are Gigabit Ethernet modules for the RS 8000, RS 8600, and RS 38000 router product family. The new modules support full MPLS Label Edge Router (LER) and Label Switch Router (LSR) functions with these features:

-- MPLS label generation and forwarding at wire speed

-- Up to 8,000 Label-Switched Paths (LSPs) per port

-- Multi-level label stacking

-- Layer 2 tunneling

-- Full support for Resource Reservation Protocol-Traffic Engineering (RSVP TE)
and Label Distribution Protocol (LDP) signaling standards along with LDP over
LDP and LDP over RSVP for supporting different tunneling schemes

-- A strong set of MPLS policies based on Layer 2 to Layer 4 fields to map to
LSPs

-- Traffic engineering Open Shortest Path First-Traffic Engineering (OSPF TE)
and IS-IS TE with online Constrained Shortest Path First (CSPF)