Caspian Networks, a start-up based in San Jose, California, announced the general availability of its Apeiro flow-based router designed for delivering "ATM-equivalent" QoS using IP. Caspian Networks' core innovation is to examine each packet entering the router, identify flows, and then store to memory the flow's relevant routing information as well as its QoS, loss, delay and jitter characteristics. Subsequent packets in the flow are switched based on the "flow state" data already in memory. By tracking potentially tens of millions of microflows per 10 Gbps interface per second in hardware, Caspian said its Apeiro platform provides deterministic QoS for premium IP traffic that is equivalent to ATM. Caspian Networks said its ASIC-driven platform is capable of handling 500,000+ flow set-ups per second, scaling far beyond the circuit set-up rates typical of ATM and MPLS. The Apeiro platform interoperates with and supports standard network protocols such as BGP, IS-IS, IPv6, and MPLS. Caspian features a fully distributed and redundant hardware architecture in which switching, forwarding, routing and management are handled by the ASICs on each line card. The system scales to 120 Gbps full duplex I/O capacity per shelf, or 360 Gbps full duplex I/O capacity per rack. This could accommodate 36 OC-192c/STM-64c ports, 36 10 GigE ports, 144 OC-48c/STM-16c or OC-12c/STM-4c ports, 288 1 GigE ports, or 432 OC-3c/STM-1c ports. The Caspian design also provides a Logical Router capability with separate routing domains within a single router.
Caspian's Apeiro platform is currently in lab trials with a number of RBOCs, IXCs and international PTTs. The company is also offering a "Caspian CORE trade-up program" in which service providers receive credits for trading in existing routers or ATM switches.
http://www.caspian.com
- In February 2002, Caspian Networks closed $120 million in fourth round venture funding. Total investment in the company now stands at $262 million.
Caspian currently employs about 120 people.
Caspian Networks was founded by Dr. Lawrence Roberts, who is credited with the design, initiation, planning and development of the ARPANET, the world's first major packet network.
