Multiprotocol routing is in the news again. Following last week’s announcements from IBM and Wellfleet Communications, Proteon International Inc, Westborough, Massachusetts has decided it doesn’t want to be left out and has issued a statement of its future developments. The statement, or roadmap, outlines three stages of progress. The company is currently at stage one, but aims to introduce products this month that will take it to the stage where it can route multiple protocols, including SNA traffic by encapsulating it in the Internet Protocol. The company, based in Sutton, Surrey in the UK, says the projected product will cope with IBM terminal and local network traffic together with DECnet and Novell IPX protocols. It will come in the form of a software upgrade which, according to technical consultant Mike Wakefield, will be able to be used by all existing customers. The company is continuing to use its Open Shortest Path First routing method as a replacement for the older Routing Information Protocol in its latest plans. The latter builds its maps of the internetwork by insisting that all routers broadcast their routing tables at intervals so that they can maintain an up-to-date view of the network and who is connected to what. Open Shortest Path First requires only that they transmit configuration changes, thus cutting down on the adminstrative traffic on large networks. Shortest Path, which has also been adopted by Wellfleet among others – but not by Cisco Systems Inc – also enables the routing method to be tailored so that traffic can be sent by the least-cost path, or to provide the best load-balancing across multiple connections. It also enables ‘type of service’ routing so that data can be categorised by its time-sensitivity or confidentiality. It may have its advantages, but it does pose problems when routers from one company are mixed with those from a vendor that uses a different routing protocol. Proteon’s Wakefield says that Routing Information Protocol devices will be able to work with the Shortest Path First software, but acknowledges that network configuration with a mixture of protocols is far from trivial. As for stage three – the products are still far away, but the company is promising support for IBM’s PU2.1 Advanced Peer-to-Peer Networking protocol, OSI routing and Common Management Interface Protocol network management. Promises that sound as though Proteon may have some new, high-powered hardware in the pipeline.
