NGN: McQuillan bids adieu; Procket proffers product upgrades

The Next Generation Networks conference in Boston closed proceedings this week with conference co-founder and networking venture capitalist John McQuillan formally stepping down as chairman from the event he helped build during the last 16 years into one of the industry’s most successful small conferences.

McQuillan passed the baton to Dave Passmore, research director at the Burton Group, who has co-chaired the last two conferences with McQuillan.

In other NGN news, Procket Networks, an IP networking equipment vendor, announced new system management, network security and availability features for its PRO/8812 and PRO/8801 IP routing platforms. Procket now supports IPv4 and IPv6 at 960 Gb/s in the carrier-class 8812 product, and 80 Gb/s in the enterprise-size 8801.

These improvements have been in demand from network operators whose legacy platforms can’t support IPv6, in particular, said Cary Hayward, director of marketing at Procket Networks.

Other enhancements include a policy control list for greater flexibility in administering network security, an MPLS fast-reroute feature, and high-availability route processing for the 8812.