Core Edge Router Capabilities Branch Out With Laurel Networks’ Product

Building on the trend of enabling new carrier services, Laurel Networks Inc. (www.laurelnetworks.com) at SUPERCOMM will unveil its ST200 Service Edge Router, an IP/MPLS box that sits at the edge of core networks.

“We call the product a service edge router, so we’re focused on creating services,” says Steve Vogelsang, co-founder and vice president of Laurel Networks, which was founded a year and a half ago by former Fore Systems employees. “We combine the ability to create services with the ability to do it at a very high capacity.”

The equipment, which offers 200gbps of switching capacity, uses MPLS to offer dedicated Internet access at high speeds – typically DS3 and up, he says. “We also enable scaling of existing services like ATM or frame relay at very high speeds across an MPLS backbone,” says Vogelsang. Running all that over IP allows service providers with a variety of services – like ATM, frame relay and IP – to do that all across a common MPLS backbone to eliminate the investment a carrier would otherwise have to make for separate backbone networks for each service; to help carriers leverage their existing investments in existing high speed IP backbones; and to allow network operators to scale service interfaces. At SUPERCOMM, Laurel Networks will do a live demonstration, including the ST200, that takes in Ethernet frames and scale it across a long-haul MPLS connection.

The product’s accounting features let carriers introduce new revenue-generating services like destination-sensitive billing. For example, a carrier could have one tier of pricing for U.S.-based traffic and premium pricing for traffic that terminates abroad. The router does policy-driven classification, allowing carriers to do things like differentiating off-net vs. on-net traffic. And it supports services like IP VPNs, which employ MPLS to create a secure IP backbone for each customer.

All traffic management functionality is distributed across line cards so as capacity is added so is traffic management capability and routing table capacity. “Almost all routers on the market today centralize those functions,” says Vogelsang. “We have 10 slots for line cards. Most routers on the market meanwhile are 8 slots so as you add packet processing there’s a lot of issues in how you scale an edge router.”

OC12 and OC48 SONET/SDH line cards for the router can channelize to any level. For example, an OC48 port can combine DS3, OC3 and OC12 channels in any combination simultaneously. And each of those channels can do frame relay, ATM, packet over SONET, PPP or TDM. Vogelsang says that reduces a carrier’s upfront costs because it then only needs to buy one card to address multiple types of lines and customer needs, it reduces the cost of spares and it makes things go more smoothly is service demand forecast models don’t play out as expected.

Vogelsang says the product’s closest competition is probably Amber Network’s (www.ambernetworks.com) ASR2000; Cisco Systems Inc.’s (www.cisco.com) 10000 product; the Juniper Networks Inc. (www.junipernetworks.com) M20 and Unisphere Network Inc.’s (www.unispherenetworks.com) ERX-1400. “But we have much higher port density – three to seven times that of competitors,” in addition to the Laurel Networks product’s other differentiated features previously noted, he says.

The company would not disclose pricing for the product, which is expected to be used in beta lab tests with Tier 1 providers starting in June. General availability is slated by the end of the year.

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