Santa Clara, CA — (press release) — Intel Corporation announced today that it is delivering its Common Open Policy Service (COPS) network configuration software technology to the industry. This action will help accelerate the growth of e-business by making networks better managed for more reliable delivery of enhanced network services.

The COPS Software Development Kit (SDK), created by the Intel Architecture Labs, is being distributed at no cost under an open source license, which creates an open environment for continued evolution of COPS through widespread adoption by networking equipment vendors.

“Providing our software technology via open source distribution will help drive Intel's objective to accelerate the deployment of enhanced network services,” said Abel Weinrib, director, Intel Architecture Labs. “Our intent is to make it as easy as possible for network equipment vendors to implement solutions based on the IETF standard Common Open Policy Services (COPS) protocol, which will help networking equipment from different vendors communicate with each other more easily.”

Addressing Networking Issues

Widespread adoption of a protocol such as COPS is key to solving many of today's network management challenges. Today's networks consist of devices from many vendors. In such an environment, managing networking equipment has been challenging due to different approaches to configuration and management of these devices. Intel's technology will enable network equipment software vendors to develop common interfaces for configuring different types of devices, making it easier to manage networks made up of equipment from different manufacturers.

Network devices using the COPS protocol can prioritize traffic through improved policy management deployment. The combination of these enhanced network services will allow IT professionals and service providers to configure network devices more easily and to manage their networks more effectively, ultimately increasing their network reliability and providing enhanced services to their customers.

Industry Support for COPS

Several major networking equipment vendors coauthored the IETF standard COPS protocol, including Intel, AT&T, Cisco, Extreme, IBM, IP Highway, Nortel Networks, and Level 3. These vendors, along with others, are actively working to support the COPS protocol through interoperability testing efforts.

Software Availability

The COPS open source software is available today, and may be downloaded from Intel's Web site, at www.intel.com/ial/. The source code can be recompiled for use under a variety of operating systems including Linux.

 
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