Nortel Networks this week announced the availability of a new version of its licensable IP code that detects and attempts to alleviate network congestion.
Nortel's Open IP Environment software is intended to "Internet-enable" a range of networking devices, from PDAs and other computing and information appliances, to set-top boxes and carrier-grade digital switching systems. The code is based on software from Phase2 Networks, a small US-based company acquired by Bay Networks in 1997, a year before Nortel acquired Bay.
Version 2.1 of Open IP Environment supports Explicit Congestion Notification, a feature that detects network congestion at the IP layer and throttles back data flow to relieve it. The new version also adds more than 30 new features, such as Differentiated Services quality of service, Multi-protocol Label Switching, the Common Open Policy Service protocol, Multicast Routing Table Manager, the Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol and Network Address Translation/Port Address Translation capabilities.
Open IP is a run-time licence and is priced based on the form factor of the "IP-enabled" device, among other factors, Nortel says.