Networking vendors chase Internet market: IP is the tie that binds

Argon Networks, Juniper Networks and Xedia Corp. are all rolling out products that emphasize Internet protocol. Argon will introduce a new line of channelized Sonet interfaces at the end of the month. The interfaces eliminate digital cross-connects now required to migrate traffic from Sonet access loops onto transport media, particularly IP and asynchronous transfer mode.

The idea is to allow service providers to exploit the economical backbone bandwidth produced by dense wavelength division multiplexing more efficiently.

"Between the edge and the core, service providers spend a lot on [digital cross-connects] to groom traffic from Sonet and present it to application-specific platforms," said Chris Baldwin, Argon's marketing vice president. "What good is virtually free bandwidth if you have to go through a mountain of cost [to use it]?"

Juniper is also looking to help carriers exploit IP. Juniper's software solution was ready in July, and the company's M40 Internet backbone-which has been in some customers' hands since July-is now going into full production.

The M40 gives Internet service providers new levels of scalability, control and performance. The product achieves that with Junos software and a hardware design that integrates the operating system, switching fabric and packet processing elements to handle high traffic flows, said Joe Ferguson, marketing director of Juniper.

"In case of a fiber cut, the routing and forwarding elements are stressed. The software must balance [the load], and all the parts must work together," he said.

Argon's ability to carry IP and ATM over any channelized Sonet pipe is unique, said Bob Bellman, president of Brook Trail Research. "[Argon] is the only company I know of that can take cells or frames over the same interface," he said. Juniper has a comprehensive product, he added. "They've looked at software, hardware and the support tools it takes to keep an Internet node running. It addresses a lot of everyday issues."

While Argon and Juniper are addressing core network needs, Xedia is beefing up its Access Point line of multiservice Internet access devices with the QVPN. The new device delivers integrated quality of service and security features for virtual private networks. The QVPN incorporates Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol and IPSec to allow users to encrypt traffic traveling over tunnels, and it allows quality of service flexibility for those tunnels.

BellSouth last week announced plans to develop an architecture to support multiple messaging applications for business and residential customers. Called Advanced Intelligent Messaging 2000, the architecture is being developed by BellSouth's intelligent services division with plans to eventually integrate universal messaging capabilities. BellSouth hopes to make the service widely available by 2000.

"It's a marriage of [Advanced Intelligent Network], messaging and Internet technologies," said Peter Hill, executive director of BellSouth's intelligent services division and the driving force behind the architecture's creation.

Hill has opened what he hopes will be an industrywide discussion on the standards-based approach BellSouth is taking with AIM's development. He hopes that by using protocols such as TCP/IP, voice protocol for Internet mail and lightweight directory access protocol, the architecture will be attractive to other carriers and the messaging capabilities will be used between multiple networks.

The architecture will allow residential users to send and reply to voice messages much as they would in a business environment. It will also offer what BellSouth calls a "boomer-ring" capability-the ability to call someone who has left a voice mail message with the press of a button. Users will be able to receive voice and fax messages from the Internet.

Lucent Technologies and Comverse Network Systems have worked for nine months with BellSouth to help develop the architecture, Hill said.

This open discussion of the standards-based approach to AIM is a good idea, said Iain Gillot, vice president of worldwide consumer/small business telecom for IDC/Link.

"It's good to get everyone in on it while it's still being developed," he said.

Software and hardware trials for AIM 2000 will begin in mid-1999, Hill said.