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By Carolyn Duffy Marsan 04/23/01
Among a handful of start-ups trying to solve the
distributed denial-of-service problem, Arbor
Networks stands out for its technology, speed to market and investors.
Spun out of a research project at the University of
Michigan, Arbor already has its antidistributed denial-of-service system
deployed across Michigan's Merit educational network. Cisco, in addition
to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Intel, helped fund the
original project, and now is helping Arbor commercialize the research. Arbor
has received $11 million from Cisco and Battery Ventures.
Arbor places appliances in the background of a service
provider's network that gather IP traffic data from other network
equipment. The devices are designed to trace distributed denial-of-service
attacks and filter out offending traffic without affecting network speed.
Companies will pay a monthly fee for the distributed
denial-of-service protection service, which is expected to be available through
service providers and Web hosting companies this spring. Beta testers include
an Internet telephony provider and an online brokerage, as Arbor plans to
pursue both service providers and companies as customers.
While building staff, Arbor is keeping its academic
roots. Only five employees are located at corporate headquarters near Boston.
The 20 members of the development team have stayed in Ann Arbor, Mich.
Arbor Networks The name: |
Representative of a group of trees, following
the tradition of using tree names in networking.
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