News for and about the Internet2 community

[Greg Wood <>]

INTERNET2 PARTNERS WITH SPIRENT COMMUNICATIONS TO ADVANCE INTERNET 
TECHNOLOGY

Internet2 End-to-End Initiative leverages Spirent’s integrated 
performance analysis and automated service assurance capabilities

ROCKVILLE, MD (May 6, 2002) – Internet2(R) and Spirent 
Communications(tm) today announce a partnership dedicated to furthering 
the Internet2 End-to-End Performance Initiative. Spirent Communications, 
a wholly owned business group of Spirent plc (NYSE: SPM and LSE: SPT) 
and Internet2 will work together to understand and overcome performance 
limitations of advanced wide area networking. With engineering support 
and end-to-end performance analysis hardware and management software 
from Spirent, Internet2 can more quickly meet its short-term goal of 
establishing a performance measurement infrastructure across Internet2 
campuses and labs.  In addition, resulting new data will be shared with 
commercial network equipment makers and to the broader commercial 
Internet industry to fuel development of the next generation Internet 
architecture, services and applications. The first milestones in the 
project cover definition of network metrics and method of access for the 
Internet2 and industry communities.

Internet2 is a research and development consortium led by more than 190 
universities, working with more than 100 companies, government research 
laboratories and other organizations. Internet2 members have deployed an 
advanced networking environment that connects more than 3 million 
people. Consisting of local, regional and national networks, including 
Internet2 backbone networks that by the end of next year will be operate 
at 10 gigabits per second and implement native IPv6. The Internet2 
End-to-End Performance Initiative seeks to create a predictably 
high-performance network environment that supports the advanced 
applications being developed, tested and deployed by the Internet2 
community.

"This is a great opportunity to advance network understanding with our 
state-of-the-art service assurance system on one of the world’s most 
advanced and complex networks," said My Chung, president of Spirent 
Communications.  "Spirent’s service assurance system will collect and 
analyze critical QoS metrics from a new generation of Spirent network 
probes based on our award-winning performance analysis products. The 
system will provide the Internet2 community with automated notification 
of performance trends, to better manage and fine tune network 
performance to create a stable and consistent environment in which the 
Internet2 community can thrive."

Spirent’s engineers and Internet2 scientists, teachers and students will 
collaborate using the Internet2 network environment to develop test 
practices and new solutions that optimize bandwidth; isolate network, 
transport and application layer processing needs; and test a network’s 
ability to work under unprecedented loads and conditions. Advanced 
network applications to be analyzed include on-demand entertainment; 
remote control of scientific instruments, distance learning and 
collaboration using virtual reality; and grid computing.  Today’s 
commercial Internet does not support these types of applications.

"This partnership takes an important step towards improving 
understanding how to deploy networks that meet the requirements of 
advanced network applications," said Ted Hanss, Internet2 director of 
applications development. "The large-scale, high-performance network 
environment established by the Interent2 community provides an ideal 
testbed for the commercial Internet of tomorrow."

About Internet2(R)
Led by over 190 U.S. universities, working with industry and government, 
Internet2 is developing and deploying advanced network applications and 
technologies for research and higher education, accelerating the 
creation of tomorrow's Internet. Internet2 recreates the partnerships 
among academia, industry, and government that helped foster today's 
Internet in its infancy. For more information about Internet2, see:
http://www.internet2.edu/

About Spirent Communications
Spirent Communications is a worldwide provider of integrated performance 
analysis and service assurance systems for next-generation network 
technologies.  Spirent's solutions accelerate the profitable development 
and deployment of network equipment and services by emulating real-world 
conditions in the lab and assuring end-to-end performance of large-scale 
networks.  www.spirentcom.com
Spirent Communications is a wholly owned subsidiary of Spirent plc, an 
international network technology company.  Spirent plc is listed on the 
London Stock Exchange (ticker: SPT). The company is also listed on the 
New York Stock Exchange (ticker: SPM; CUSIP number: 84856M209). 
www.spirent.com

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