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IPv4/v6 Internet Routing Solutions

Foundry offers a complete range of routing products ranging from entry level stackables like the FastIron Edge Switch—with Layer 3 upgrade—to the high end, high performance routers like the NetIron MLX routers and the NetIron XMR routers. A complete set of IPv4 unicast and multicast routing protocols enables support for a multitude of high performance routing scenarios. These protocols include RIP, OSPF, BGP, IS-IS, IGMP, DVMRP, PIM-DM, and PIM-SM. Foundry's high-end routers are powered by Multi-Service IronWare operating system software, which offers high resiliency and advanced functionality required to power such networks.

Overview

Foundry's routers feature industry leading scalability, and offer massive route capacity in the Route Information Base. The huge route capacity is complemented by super fast route processors on the management modules and fast Forwarding Information Base (FIB) table download to the line cards. This allows for fast route table calculation and path recovery in case of a network failure.

Recent and radical changes in Internet traffic patterns caused by the rise of peer-to-peer applications, Internet worms, and various types of malware have necessitated the use of completely hardware-driven, robust, high end routing techniques in the core and distribution layers of an ISP network. Foundry Direct Routing (FDR) effectively addresses this crucial ISP need providing complete FIB programming in the line card hardware to offer consistent high performance routing regardless of the traffic patterns. In addition, the NetIron MLX Series and NetIron XMR Series offer wire-speed, hardware-based unicast reverse path forwarding checks to thwart spoof attacks on the network infrastructure or the end subscribers.

With IPv6 gaining popularity and increasing in demand each day, Foundry offers ISPs dual stack IPv4/IPv6 routing on many platforms including the BigIron RX Series, NetIron MLX Series, and the high end NetIron XMR routers. The dual stack functionality enables ISPs to mix IPv4 and IPv6 routing on the same physical interfaces, allowing ISPs to turn on IPv6 as needed without any performance sacrifice or additional cost. A rich set of IPv6 routing protocols enables both unicast and multicast IPv6 routing. Supported routing protocols include RIPng, OSPFv3, BGP4+, MLDv1 and MLDv2, and PIM-SSM.

ISPs today require real-time visibility into traffic loads, and traffic composition, in order to do better capacity planning, as well as troubleshooting in case of a network problem or a DDoS attack. The support for sFlow technology (RFC 3176) across Foundry's product lines provides a powerful, convenient and consistent tool to have such network-wide visibility. sFlow offers ISPs a scalable distributed mechanism and is built into Foundry's packet processors. This approach is far better suited for very high speed interfaces than competitor solutions, and is far less demanding in terms of CPU loads and resource consumption on the ISP routers.

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Related Products

Product Description
FastIron Edge X Series Foundry's FastIron® Edge Switch X-series (FESX) products—the FastIron Edge X Series 424 (FESX424), the FastIron Edge X Series 448 (FESX448), the FastIron Edge X... Learn more
BigIron RX Series Switches The role of data networks in our daily lives continues to expand and grow. Emerging needs such as application convergence, non-stop operation, scalability and IPv6... Learn more
NetIron MLX Series Routers Network planners today have to ensure that the solution chosen provides the right mix of functionality and high performance while reducing the total cost of... Learn more
NetIron XMR Series Backbone Routers Today's Service Providers face a number of challenges that require a new breed of solutions in order to ensure successful and profitable operation. Service Providers ... Learn more

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