Anagran launches new router

AUGUST 6, 2007 -- Anagran (search for Anagran), a router company founded by Internet pioneer Dr. Larry Roberts, has formally debuted with the launch of its initial product. The Anagran FR-1000 Flow Router takes advantage of "intelligent flow routing" to provide better performance than conventional Layer 3 routers, as well as lower energy consumption and cost, the company asserts.

Anagran CEO Roberts, who also founded flow-based router company Caspian, says that the new product applies flow routing more economically than his former company's product did. He also asserts that the FR-1000 will handle HDTV-quality IPTV and other aspects of quadruple-play services more efficiently than standard Layer 3 routers at a fraction of the cost.

Intelligent flow routers based on Anagran's Fast Flow Routing architecture feature an FPGA-based preprocessing engine that, via Anagran's Intelligent Flow Discard approach, enables the router to proactively meter traffic based on streams of packets, or flows. Packets that are part of high-priority flows get preferential treatment while total output capacity rises to a sustained 90-95%, the company claims. An adjustable Behavioral Traffic Control feature prohibits any flows from using more than their alloted share of network resources. Thus, the FR-1000 also will help carriers keep peer-to-peer traffic from consuming bandwidth more time-critical traffic requires, Roberts adds. In total, the router will support 7.6X more capacity for time-critical traffic and 2.7X more total capacity than conventional routers, he says. It also will avoid the freeze-frame, jitter, and general scalability challenges Roberts says current Layer 3 routers face.

The FR-1000 is designed to reside at or just before the network edge and interoperate with any existing IP network infrastructure, including existing routers or in conjunction with any WAN optimization or deep packet inspection product.

The router is designed to require 80% less power than existing routers. At one RU, the Anagran FR-1000 is 80% smaller than any other Layer 3 router of similar capacity on the market today, the company says.

The Anagran FR-1000 has been running in multiple service provider and corporate network test environments for over six months with good results, according to the company. The product is now available for worldwide revenue shipments directly from Anagran and will also be available and supported through licensed resellers augmented with direct support assistance from Anagran.

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