Mountain View, CA — (press release excerpt) — MontaVista Software has announced software support for MMC Networks' high-speed Internet Protocol (IP) router reference design based completely on off-the-shelf network processing hardware and open-source Linux-based software. According to the two companies, this joint reference design signals a significant advance for the networking industry, allowing a… completely new generation of networking and communications equipment vendors to bring products to market more rapidly than ever.

MMC and MontaVista combined MontaVista's Hard Hat Linux for real-time applications with MMC's complete network processing platforms (network processors, switch fabrics, and traffic management engines), the MMC nPsoft Development Environment — including base system software, IP routing application reference library and developer API — and additional open-source application code. The hardware/software combination forms the potential base for a variety of Layer 3-7 service provider WAN and enterprise LAN devices.

Typically, high-speed switch/router developers must first create their own application (e.g., IP routing) code for both their central management processor (CPU) and their fast-forwarding network processors (NPUs). Then they have to integrate management processor, network processor, switch fabric, and traffic management hardware with both their own software and a real-time operating system (RTOS). With this collaboration, MMC and MontaVista have done both the custom development and open-source integration work to deliver a complete hardware/software reference design for an off-the-shelf high-speed IP router.

The reference design incorporates:

• MMC's chassis-based development system hardware, with nP7000 family line cards connected to an nPX5000 family switch fabric and traffic management engine
  
• MontaVista's Hard Hat Linux RTOS on the management CPU
  
• MMC's nPsoft Services framework software and nPsoft IPv4 routing application reference library on both the NPUs and management CPU
  
• Open-source application-layer routing information protocol software, integrated with Linux RTOS and MMC's nPsoft API

The MMC hardware reference platform, running MontaVista's Hard Hat Linux and related software, was demonstrated at the Next Generation Networks 2000 conference held last week in Washington, DC.

 
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