CALABASAS, CA -- Ixia (Nasdaq: XXIA), a leading provider of high-speed, multiport network performance analysis and optimization systems, announced today that as part of its sponsorship of Internet2 it has donated its inter-domain traffic engineering software, IxTraffic, for use in monitoring routing and traffic flows on the Internet2 Abilene network. IxTraffic is used to optimize the performance of Abilene, the world’s most advanced research network. "Organizations using the Abilene network demand the highest standards of end-to-end traffic performance," explained Steve Steve Corbató, Director of Backbone Network Infrastructure. "This requires that we monitor and optimize both internal network performance and performance at the edges of the network where Abilene interconnects with other academic and research networks. IxTraffic provides us with unprecedented visibility and understanding of our inter-domain traffic." IxTraffic was deployed in June 2002 and is now providing network engineers with live, domain-wide visibility into the behavior of Abilene’s border gateway protocol (BGP) routing, enabling rapid identification of problems and anomalies. Correlation between this routing data and traffic flow information is also enabling detailed analysis of traffic usage patterns between participating organizations. "As a sponsor of Internet2, we are pleased to be in a position to help ensure the continued high performance of the Abilene network," said Eran Karoly, vice president of marketing for Ixia. "Ixia is committed to the continued development of leading edge networking technologies." Underscoring this commitment, Ixia is currently partnering with the Asia Pacific Advanced Network (APAN), STAR TAP, and the RouteViews project sponsored by the University of Waikato, New Zealand. More than 200 academic and research organizations participate in the Abilene network, interconnecting at speeds ranging from OC-3 to OC-48. Connectors include 29 peer networks, such as the Defense Research and Engineering Network (DREN), the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Sciences Network (ESnet), NASA’s Integrated Services Network (NISN) and Research and Education Network (NREN), the very high performance Backbone Network Service (vBNS) sponsored by the National Science Foundation, as well as more than 50 non-U.S. research and education networks. At this week’s Internet2 Joint Technical Workshop, in Boulder, Colorado, staff from Ixia and the Abilene network operations center (NOC) at Indiana University will provide demos of IxTraffic and hands-on training sessions in inter-domain traffic engineering. Topics include: short-term traffic management, including routing optimization and congestion mitigation, and longer-term network planning involving peering analysis and evaluating requirements for new capacity and services. Routing and traffic load information from Abilene’s 13 core routers is available from the Abilene NOC, http://www.abilene.iu.edu. "Trend analysis and correlation of network metrics is fundamental to understanding the Internet’s evolution and to the design of future protocols and technologies," explained Guy Almes, Internet2's chief engineer. "The data collected by IxTraffic will be an important source of information for the network research community." In addition to providing real-time network monitoring and optimization benefits, IxTraffic data will be available for off-line analysis by participating Internet2 researchers.