Argon Networks scales router smarts

Littleton, Mass.

Gigabit router start-up Argon Networks is taking the Internet scalability issue beyond bandwidth to the brain of the backbone.

Argon last week touted the route processing capability of its yet-to-be-released GigaPacket Node (GPN) router, which the firm claims has the optimal horsepower for handling Internet peering and virtual private network deployment. For end users, scalable processing may mean more reliable Internet service, Argon claims.

The control shelf component of Argon's GPN performs all route calculations and processing for Border Gateway Protocol 4 (BGP4), Open Shortest Path First and Multi-protocol Label Switching (MPLS) circuit assignments.

Argon says the GPN control shelf architecture allows users to scale processing to manage thousands of BGP4 sessions and up to eight million MPLS label assignments.

Conversely, Cisco Internet routers and those from other start-ups may not have enough horsepower to support future BGP4 peering requirements or reliable enterprise-to-Internet connectivity, Argon claims.

For now, Argon's control shelf architecture is unique, analysts say.

But GPN won't be generally available until mid-1999, so Cisco and other start-ups may have time to respond. "They may not have to rearchitect everything, but they're going to have to crank up processors or put in a second processor," says Bob Bellman, principal at Brooktrail Research in Natick, Mass.

Argon network architecture
From Argon.

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