Dr. Larry Roberts, who is known for his pioneering work on the ARPANET and his role in network equipment start-up companies, formally launched his latest innovation and new networking company, Anagran. The company announced the immediate availability of the Anagran FR-1000 Flow Router, a routing platform aimed improving media flows across the Internet.
The Anagran router resides at or just before the network edge and is designed to work seamlessly with any router or in conjunction with any WAN optimization or deep packet inspection product.
Anagran's "Fast Flow Routing" architecture looks at each packet as part of its higher level flow and based on specified priorities, intelligently delivers the most critical information at the highest quality of performance.
The company said it is using a new approach to traffic control and congestion management-- called " Intelligent Flow Discard" -- which proactively meters all incoming flows by class to fill the output capacity to a sustained 90 -- 95%, virtually eliminating delay and packet losses caused by traditional routers' large output queues under traffic overload. The FR-1000 keeps critical statistics on each flow in real time--the source, destination, the amount of traffic running, the duration, and other key statistics that define the nature and health of the flow. To ensure sustained performance and quality for critical "real time" services like video and voice, the router uses "Behavioral Traffic Control" to prohibit any flows from using more than their appropriate share of network resources by adjusting every flow's class, rate, or route to control P2P or any other traffic type.
Anagran is touting the low cost and power consumption of its 1RU platform (about $70,000) compared to typical Layer 3 edge routers.
http://www.anagran.com
- Dr. Larry Roberts previously backed Caspian Networks, another high-profile, Silicon Valley start-up developing flow-based routers. Caspian ceased operations in 2006.
