Top 500 supercomputers in the world

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27th Edition of TOP500 List of World’s Fastest Supercomputers Released

DOE/LLNL BlueGene/L and IBM gain Top Positions

MANNHEIM, Germany; KNOXVILLE, Tenn.; & – BERKELEY, Calif.; In what has become a closely watched event in the world of high-performance computing, the 27th edition of the TOP500 list of the world’s fastest supercomputers was released today (June 28, 2006) at the International Supercomputing Conference (ISC2006) in Dresden, Germany..

The new TOP500 list, as well as the previous 26 lists, can be found on the Web at http://www.top500.org/.

The No. 1 position was again claimed by the BlueGene/L System, a joint development of IBM and DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and installed at DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, Calif. BlueGene/L also occupied the No. 1 position on the last three TOP500 lists. It has reached a Linpack benchmark performance of 280.6 TFlop/s (“teraflops” or trillions of calculations per second) and still remains the only system ever to exceed the level of 100 TFlop/s. This system is expected to remain the No. 1 Supercomputer in the world for the next few editions of the TOP500 list.

Even as processor frequencies seem to stall the performance improvements of full systems seen at the very high end of scientific computing shows no sign of slowing down. This time the last 158 systems on the list in June 2005 are too small to be included any longer, which represents a lower than average turn-over rate after two record breaking rates in the last lists. However, the growth of average performance remains stable and ahead of Moore’s Law.

Three of the TOP10 systems on the November 2005 TOP500 list were displaced by newly installed systems. The largest system in Europe is the new No. 5 at the Commissariat a l'Energie Atomique (CEA) in France. It is an Itanium based NovaScale 5160 system build by the French company Bull with 8704 processors and a Quadrics interconnect.

The largest system in Japan, a cluster integrated by NEC based on Sun Fire X64 with Opteron processors and an Infiniband interconnect, is installed at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and gained the No. 7 spot.

The German Forschungszentrum Juelich (FZJ) got to No. 8 with its new BlueGene system, which is now the second largest system in Europe. It is also the largest BlueGene system outside the US and the third largest in general.

The NEC-built Earth Simulator, which has a Linpack benchmark performance of 35.86 TFlop/s and had held the No. 1 position for five consecutive TOP500 lists before being replaced by BlueGene/L in November of 2004, has slipped now to already No. 10.

IBM remains the dominant vendor of supercomputers with almost half of the list (48.6 percent) carrying its label. Also, four of the TOP10 systems are from IBM. Hewlett-Packard (HP) remains unchallenged at the second position in this survey with 30.8 percent of all systems.

Intel microprocessors are at the heart of 301 of all 500 systems. Intel’s EM64T-based processors are very successful in the high performance computing (HPC) market place, with 118 systems using them already. AMD’s Opteron processors are also steadily and rapidly gaining ground, now with 81 systems using them compared to only 25 systems one year ago.

The U.S. is clearly the leading consumer of HPC systems with 298 of the 500 systems installed there. The European share continues to decline with now 83 systems down from 100 six month ago, while Asia mounted a turn-around with now 93 systems up from 66 six month ago.

Here are some highlights from the newest Top 500:

Only systems exceeding the 2.03 TFlop/s mark on the Linpack benchmark were qualified to make the list this time, compared to 1.17 TFlop/s one year ago. The last system on the latest list was listed at position 183 just one year ago.

The entry level for the TOP10 exceeds 35 TFlop/s and the entry point for the top 100 moved from 3.41 TFlop/s one year ago to 4.71 TFlop/s.
Total combined performance of all 500 systems on the list is now 2.79 PFlop/s (“petaflops” or thousand “teraflops”), compared to 1.69 PFlop/s one year ago.

Other trends of interest:

A total of 301 systems are now using Intel processors, with 118 one these are already using the EM64T processors. The second most-commonly used processors are the IBM Power processors (84 systems), just ahead of AMD Opteron processors (81).

There are 365 systems labeled as clusters, making this the most common architecture in the TOP500. Of these, 255 cluster systems are connected using Gigabit Ethernet and 87 system using Myricom’s Myrinet.

At present, IBM and Hewlett-Packard sell the bulk of systems at all performance levels of the TOP500. IBM remains the clear leader in the TOP500 list with 48.6 percent of systems and 54.3 percent of installed performance. HP is second with 30.8 percent of systems and 17.5 percent of performance. No other manufacturer is able to capture more than 5 percent in any category.The U.S. is clearly the leading consumer of HPC systems with 298 of the 500 systems installed there (up from 267 one year ago). The European is slightly decreasing to 83 systems while the Asian share is increasing to 93 systems, which puts it ahead of Europe again.Dominant countries in Asia are Japan with 29 systems and China almost equal with 28 systems.

In Europe, Germany (17 systems) lost further ground with the UK clearly ahead again (35 systems). One year ago Germany was in the lead with 40, compared to UK’s 32 systems.

The TOP500 list is compiled by Hans Meuer of the University of Mannheim, Germany; and Erich Strohmaier and Horst Simon of NERSC/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; and Jack Dongarra of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

IBM Easily Heads Top500 Supercomputer List

AMD's Opteron gains ground vs. last year

July 10, 2006 (Computerworld) -- The Top500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers, released late last month, showed IBM 's Blue Gene continuing to reign and Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s Opteron processor powering more systems on the list than last year.

IBM's Blue Gene/L System, used at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, recently reached a Linpack benchmark performance of 280.6 trillion floating-point operations per second (TFLOPS) to easily top the list. No other system has yet passed the 100 TFLOPS mark.

IBM supercomputers accounted for about half of the list, with Hewlett-Packard Co. occupying nearly a third.

The Top500 Supercomputer Sites list is compiled by supercomputing experts Jack Dongarra at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Erich Strohmaier and Horst Simon at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Hans Meuer of the University of Mannheim.

Fewer Changes

The Top500 list, known for its rapid turnover, showed fewer changes than usual this year. Some 158 systems were bumped from the latest list, compared with more than 200 systems displaced in the June 2005 list.

But in the fast-paced world of high-performance supercomputing, no systems maker can rest on its laurels for long.

"The thresholds to get into the top 50 move fast; machines are there one day, gone the next," said Herb Schultz, manager for IBM's Blue Gene. "It's no secret Blue Gene has been in the market for a little while and we're looking at ways to make the chips faster, get more chips on a core and do a faster job of interconnecting nodes," Schultz said.

Among other trends on the list: Intel Corp. microprocessors powered 301 of the systems, down from 333 last year, while AMD's Opteron processors gained some ground by running 81 systems, compared with just 25 one year ago.

Solheim is a reporter for the IDG News Service.

IBM to run Power6 server chip at 5 GHz

Says it cranked up the speed without sacrificing power efficiency

October 10, 2006 (IDG News Service) -- IBM plans to crank up the speed on its Power6 server chip to 5 GHz, far higher than competing processors from Intel Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc.

Despite its high frequency, the chip will avoid overheating through its small, 65-nanometer-process geometry, high-bandwidth buses running as fast as 75GB per second and voltage thresholds as low as 0.8 volts, IBM said.

When it ships the chip in mid-2007, IBM will target users running powerful servers with two to 64 processors, said Brad McCredie, IBM's chief engineer for Power6. He shared details on the chip at the Fall Microprocessor Forum in San Jose.

By doubling the frequency of its current Power5 design, IBM is swimming against the current of recent chip designs that sacrifice frequency for power efficiency. Instead, IBM cut its power draw by making the chip more efficient, with improvements like computing floating-point decimals in hardware instead of software, he said.

The company hopes the Power6 will help it reach new customers in commercial database and transaction processing, in addition to typical users of its Power5 chip in financial and high-performance computing, such as airplane design and automotive crash simulation, McCredie said. To win that business, IBM will have to compete with chips such as Intel's Itanium 2, code-named "Montecito," and Sun's high-end Sparc processors.

If this chip works as promised, IBM could be successful in that effort, analysts say. IBM is one of the few remaining alternatives to Intel in the market for the so-called big-iron servers used in high-end jobs such as scientific computing, image processing, weather prediction and defense, said Jim Turley, principal analyst at Silicon Insider in Pacific Grove, Calif.

IBM upgraded its current midrange Unix servers in February from 1.9-GHz to 2.2-GHz Power5+ processors, targeting users of large databases, enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management applications. The company will ship several versions of the Power6 chip, ranging from 4 to 5 GHz in frequency.

Reprinted with permission from

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Story copyright 2006 International Data Group. All rights reserved.

Fiber to the home: 'It's insanely better'

Cable too slow? Try blazing-fast optical fiber.

October 12, 2006 (Computerworld) -- Some call it fiber to the home (FTTH) or fiber to the premises (FTTP) or fiber to the node (FTTN) or fiber to the curb (FTTC) or fiber to wherever (FTTX).

But Jared Wray, an IT consultant in Seattle, has a simpler description.

"It's insanely better," he said. "I downloaded Microsoft SQL Server Service Pack 1, a 252MB file, in two minutes, 30 seconds. It's to the point where the speed of your throughput is gated by the speed of the remote server, rather than your local interface."

For $40 per month more than he had been paying for a 6Mbit/sec. cable modem connection, he became an early user of an FTTH service from Verizon Communications Inc. called FiOS, with 30Mbit/sec. downstream and 5Mbit/sec. upstream. Instead of a pair of copper wires connecting his house to the telco central office, a fiber-optic strand was laid to his house.

Replacing the backbone

Basically, the phone companies have replaced their backbone networks with fiber, and are, in an increasing number of instances, extending that fiber to individual subscribers, affording them unprecedented data speed, offering exciting possibilities for telecommuters. Indeed, pundits look forward to a day when copper phone wires will be found only in museums, and the availability of enormous amounts of bandwidth will give birth to applications and services currently undreamed of.

As of September, there were 1.01 million FTTX users in North America, said Mike Render, a consultant at RVA Market Research in Tulsa, Okla. That's a major leap from the 332,700 subscribers counted in 2005, or the 146,500 counted in 2004. Almost as interesting to telecom analysts is the number of homes passed (i.e., the necessary fiber has been laid in front of the house.) That number has also ballooned, reaching 6,099,000 in September, up from 2.7 million in 2005 and 970,000 in 2004.

Wray's carrier, Verizon, is the single largest FTTX carrier in North America. Verizon spokesman Mark Marchand in Basking Ridge, N.J., said the telco plans to pass 6 million homes with fiber by the end of this year and will continue to pass 3 million additional homes yearly through at least 2011. By then about half of Verizon's 30 million home market base will have been passed.

"We want to build a network that would not just cover us for the next four or five years, but be future-proof," he said. He noted that reaching higher speeds only requires putting new electronics on either end of the fiber.

Verizon FiOS subscribers are offered downstream speeds of 5, 15, 30 and (in selected markets) 50Mbit/sec., using technology called broadband passive optical network (BPON) with a 322Mbit/sec. channel that is optically split 32 ways. Marchand estimated that the system could support 100M bit/sec. subscriber connections, but that speed is not being marketed yet.

In 80 cities where video franchises have been acquired, Verizon also offers a digital TV network, using an 860M bit/sec. channel on a different frequency, so that the video bandwidth doesn't reduce the available data bandwidth.

As of Aug. 1, 375,000 homes had subscribed to FiOS, said Marchand, who noted that an average of 12% of local broadband users switch to FiOS during its first nine months of availability in a specific market. No sales figures for the related digital TV service were available.

Next year Verizon will switch to Gigabit passive optical network (GPON) for new construction, with a backbone channel of 2.4Gbit/sec. downstream and 1.2Gbit/sec. upstream, Marchand added.

Fiber to the node

But outside Verizon, fiber often means FTTN (fiber to the node,) where fiber is run to a neighborhood interface box, and the subscribers are served from there using repurposed copper wires, usually through high-speed short-range versions of Digital Subscriber Line (DSL). FTTN variants are called active networks, since they rely on active electronics rather than passive fiber.

The most visible FTTN example appears to be AT&T Inc. (formerly SBC Communications Inc.) with its U-verse offering (although, like Verizon, AT&T is laying pure fiber for new housing developments.) Using Very High Speed Digital Subscriber Line (VDSL), customers can receive at least 25M bit/sec., explained AT&T spokesman Wes Warnock in San Antonio. The bandwidth includes a data channel running at 6M bit/sec. downstream, and the rest is devoted to digital TV, and should be enough for four different simultaneous standard TV channels, he said.

Although it's slated to be available in at least 15 cities by year's end, U-verse is currently available only in San Antonio, where subscriber Alan Weinkrantz, a high-tech publicist, said he was less impressed with the higher data speed than with the user interface for the TV system.

"Channels change faster and the interface and user experience is superior -- I enjoy doing my own programming," he said. "I could say that the data is faster by a certain factor, but I don't notice it when I do e-mail."

Among other major carriers, BellSouth Corp. has long practiced FTTC (fiber to the curb), and it's planning high-speed DSL to compete with fiber, with a speed of about 24M bit/sec. And Qwest Communications International Inc. has been installing FTTH in new developments.

Local level

Meanwhile, there is a lot of fiber activity at the local level, with communities not waiting for their telco to lay fiber, or partnering to make sure it happens, especially in upscale housing developments.

An April survey published by the FTTH Council listed 936 U.S. communities that were being served with fiber networks. Of those, 377 were installed by regional Bell operating companies, 270 by other incumbent local exchange carriers, 165 by competitive local exchange carriers (CLEC), 84 by partnerships between developers and CLECs, 30 by municipalities and 10 by public utility districts. Most used passive optical networking.

There's also a lot of activity overseas, noted Jeff Heynen, an analyst at Infonetics Research in Campbell, Calif. In fact, both North America and Europe lag so far behind the Pacific Rim in terms of fiber adoption that they may never catch up, he said. Reliance on high-rise apartments in Asia means that the fiber only has to reach the building to serve multiple subscribers, while in North America and Europe it often has to be laid to each house, he explained.

As a result, there are about 6 million fiber users in Asia, as opposed to 680,000 in Europe and (as stated) about a million in North America, Heynen noted. He predicted the world total will grow to 38 million by 2009.

As for a complete switchover from copper to fiber, "That will take a long time, since there is a big installed base of DSL," Heynen said. And DSL may manage to remain competitive with copper longer than anyone had imagined -- there are already versions that can reach 100M bit/sec., he noted.

Unbeatable speed, theoretically

But eventually, fiber is fated to win any performance wars, since (according to research at Bell Labs done in 2001) the theoretical capacity of a strand of fiber is thought to be 100 trillion bits per second, or a million times faster than the maximum of 100M bit/sec. being contemplated for today's FTTH services.

But fiber will have had a big impact long before that happens. Heynen foresees social networks like MySpace being based on video exchanges, rather than today's text and pictures. When software can be downloaded at speeds approaching local disk access, the use of embedded operating systems and packaged applications may fade away as users switch to thin clients, he predicted.

"By 2010 people will begin creating applications that we have not even thought about today, perhaps involving tele-medicine or tele-health," predicted Elroy Jopling, an analyst at Gartner Inc. "It will be like the old days of the PC -- when the RAM doubled, people found a use for it."

Other benefits can be found in the present, indicated Joe Savage, president of the FTTH Council in Portland, Ore. Surveys of FTTH users show they spend an average of one additional day per month telecommuting, and they feel that the connection increases the market value of their home by 1%, he said.

Also, he lists decisions by various corporations to locate in communities with fiber because they knew the employees could work from home.

Back in Seattle, Wray can hardly contain his enthusiasm for FTTH. "I love it -- it's the greatest thing I've ever had," he concluded.

More information:

• 
  
• Fiber to the premises - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  
• FTTH Conference Expo 2006
  
• What is FTTH? - A Word Definition From the Webopedia Computer ...
  
• FTTHblog
  
• Network World: FTTH/FTTP (fiber to the home / fiber to the premises
  

Lamont Wood is a freelance writer in San Antonio.

Symantec to add encryption, better recovery to backup

Users are beta-testing the product now for a November/December launch

October 12, 2006 (Computerworld) -- Symantec Corp. is expected to announce before the end of the year a new version of its Backup Exec backup and recovery software that includes encryption and more granular recovery capability for Microsoft applications, according to beta testers and other users familiar with the product.

Backup Exec 11 has been undergoing beta testing since this spring, with some users reporting having tested it in April and May, and others still beta-testing it now. The existing version, Backup Exec 10d, was announced in January 2005, and Symantec typically operates on a two-year upgrade window. Symantec officials would not comment on the product.

One user, who asked not to be named, said he had tested the product this spring and said it included granular Active Directory restore, which could allow a storage administrator to restore a single deleted user without having to restore all of Active Directory. Similar granular restore capabilities are going to be available for Microsoft servers such as Exchange and SQL Server, he said. Other new features the user reported included distributed catalogs, which enable users -- perhaps in a remote office -- to perform data restores if the centralized administration server isn't available. In addition, the product supports Symantec's LiveUpdate feature.

Gary Cannon, president of Advanced Internet Security Inc., said the new version, which he expects to come out in November or December, includes continuous data protection for Exchange that would eliminate the daily backup window. The Colorado Springs-based systems integrator is beta-testing the software. In addition, Cannon said, users will be able to restore Exchange messages and folders and individual SharePoint Server documents, as well as perform SQL snapshots.

Jeremy Burton, Symantec's group president of enterprise security and data management, had said at Symantec's Vision conference in May that the company was working on a sequel to the current 10d version of Backup Exec called Eagle that incorporated continuous data protection and live state recovery capabilities into a single project that would ship in early 2007 (see "Symantec announces continuous data protection products"). This would provide continuous snapshots that would let users recover data from any point in time to any point in time, he said.

Cannon said the product included the ability to encrypt backups. Such functionality is available in the more expensive NetBackup but not currently in Backup Exec. Bob Stump, lead NetBackup administrator for the state of Michigan, said he had also heard that the NetBackup encryption functionality would be available in Backup Exec and noted that he knew of many users who had migrated from Backup Exec to NetBackup to get that functionality.

Users on Symantec's Veritas Forums Web site who were familiar with the product also confirmed that it will have encryption, as well as eliminate a fragmentation problem that was present in Version 10d.

NEC develops razor-thin battery

It would be used in active RFID cards

News Story by Martyn Williams Taken by: Daniel George
Website: http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2005/0,4814,106852,00.html

DECEMBER 08, 2005 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - TOKYO –

Engineers at Japan's NEC Corp. have developed a flexible battery that is less than a millimeter thick and can be charged in half a minute, the company said.

The battery has been designed for use in applications such as active radio frequency identification (RFID) cards and could provide enough power to keep such cards running for several weeks before requiring a recharge, said Yoshimi Kubo, chief manager of fuel cell and battery research at NEC's fundamental and environmental research laboratories yesterday.

The device is an "organic radical battery," a technology developed by NEC that uses materials that are more environmentally friendly than the chemicals found in common rechargeable batteries, the company said. NEC began researching the technology in 2000, and its work has been partly funded by Japan's New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO).

One of the features of such batteries is their ability to be charged quickly. The device unveiled yesterday can be charged to about 80% of its capacity in about 30 seconds.

A prototype is being demonstrated this week at an NEC event in Tokyo. The battery measures about 4 centimeters square and has been fitted into a card that's about the same size as an identification or credit card. After a charge, it can keep an LED embedded in the card lighted for about 20 minutes before requiring a recharge.

Such thin batteries are important for active-type RFID cards. Most RFID cards or tags are passive devices that aren't capable of transmitting data on their own and work when brought into proximity with a radio field from a tag reader. This typically means they work over a range of several centimeters. Active tags are more like miniature radios and can transmit over longer distances, which means they can be read without having to bring them as close to the tag reader.

NEC said it has no plans for commercial production of the device or an estimate of how much it would cost at such a time as production begins.

It's also not the first organic radical battery application developed by NEC.

A larger version of the battery was shown earlier this year and proposed as a possible future emergency power source for PCs. Because the battery is capable of delivering a large amount of power in a short period, NEC demonstrated it being used to power a PC for about 15 seconds, which is enough time for the PC to back up important data and shut down properly.

That application used four batteries, each of which measure 55 by 43 millimeters and are 4mm thick, which is about the same size as a stack of three credit cards. Each cell weighs 20 grams. Like the prototype on show this week, NEC didn't have any immediate commercialization plans for the technology.

Security firm detects IM bot that chats with you

Bot replies with messages such as 'lol no its not its a virus'
News Story by Nancy Gohring
taken by Daniel George
Website: http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/software/groupware/story/0,10801,106832,00.html?SKC=software-106832

DECEMBER 07, 2005 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) –

A new form of malicious instant-message bot is on the loose that talks back to the user, possibly signifying a potentially dangerous trend, an instant messaging security firm said.

IMlogic Inc. issued the warning late yesterday after citing a recent example of such a malicious bot. On Monday, the company first published details of a new threat known as IM.Myspace04.AIM. Once the computer of an America Online Inc. IM user is infected, the bot sends messages to people on the infected user's buddy list, making the messages appear to come from the infected user. The user isn't aware that the messages are being sent. If recipients click on a URL sent with a message, they will also become infected and start spreading the virus.

A bot is a program that can automatically interact with people or other programs. AOL, for example, has bots that let users ask questions via IM, such as directory queries, and the bot responds.

The unusual part of this malicious bot is that it replies to messages. If a recipient responds after the initial message, the bot replies with messages such as "lol no its not its a virus" and "lol thats cool." Because the bot mimics a live user interaction, it could increase infection rates, IMlogic said.

IMlogic continues to analyze this threat but so far it seems to only be propagating and not otherwise affecting users.

An AOL spokesman said today that the company's IT staff has not yet seen the bot appear on its network. The company said it reminds its users not to click on links inside IM messages unless the user can confirm that he knows the sender and what is being sent.

Some similar IM worms install spybots or keyloggers onto users' computers, said Sean Doherty, IMlogic's director of services in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Such malicious programs record keystrokes or other user activity in an effort to discover user passwords or other information.

"What we're seeing with some of these worms is they vary quickly, so the initial one may be a probe to see how well it infected users, and then a later variant will be one that may put a spybot out," Doherty said. The initial worm could be essentially a proof of concept coming from the malware writers, he said.

The secret life of a rootkit

Website: http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2005/0,4814,106842,00.html

DECEMBER 07, 2005 (COMPUTERWORLD) –

Much like in the movie The Matrix, where the world presented to the computer user is not a true representation of what is really going on, a rootkit is a program that can be used to hide files, registry settings, network connections, processes and other information from computer users.

For example, a rootkit can make processes that run but are hidden from Windows Task Manager, registry keys that can't be seen with Regedit, and network connections that are not viewable by Netstat.

Rootkit technology allows malicious software (malware) to be stealthier, and that in general makes it more effective. This is not about just evading detection by a casual user; rootkit technology allows malware to evade many antivirus and antispyware programs. There are few legitimate uses for this kind of technology, although some companies do market "hidden folders" that enable users to hide sensitive or embarrassing information from other users of the same computer.

All rootkits rely on the ability to manipulate the results of the function calls made by programs. For example, in order for the Task Manager program in Windows to show a list of running processes, it calls a Windows API function (EnumProcesses) that returns a list of identifiers (or process IDs), which are obtained from a data structure in the kernel.

A rootkit works by intercepting the call and filtering out the processes that it is trying to hide. They can be implemented either in user space or in the kernel, with the kernel rootkits being the most dangerous.

Files, registry entries and network connections can all be hidden in analogous ways by altering the results of the appropriate function calls. Because most antivirus and antispyware programs rely on these calls (for example, to find files to scan), files hidden by rootkits are invisible to an antivirus program. The machine could be infected, but an antivirus program would be unable to detect it.

Kernel-mode rootkits require some code to be loaded into the kernel (normally a device driver or .sys file). They can do this by following the legitimate route that low-level device drivers use (using the service control manager services .exe), or there are a few undocumented ways to insert code into the kernel. Once inside, the code can modify the results of functions calls made into the kernel or modify kernel structures.

How to spot a rootkit

There are two main ways to detect the presence of a rootkit on an infected machine: scanning and event monitoring. The scanning technique involves comparing a view of the system using user-space tools and a view from inside the kernel. If anything is hidden, it should be visible in the kernel, but not in user space. Recently, a variety of programs have been released that do these scans.

This technique is good in principle -- rootkits hide resources, so the best way to detect them is to look for things that are hidden. There are, however, a couple of weaknesses with this approach. The first is that if the kernel itself has been compromised, then the scan from kernel space may be tainted by the rootkit. Whether this happens or not depends on the details of exactly how the scan and rootkit are implemented. Since the Windows kernel is largely undocumented, it is hard to be sure that the scan is giving the correct results. Also, rootkits can evade detection by hiding from all processes except the rootkit detector.

The alternative approach is to use an event-based system that monitors continuously to catch the rootkit in the act of installation. These programs are often called intrusion-prevention systems (IPS). It is important that the program behavior is monitored from the kernel. IPS systems that monitor in user space are just as vulnerable to rootkits as any other user-space program.

These systems can detect and block the loading of kernel modules. However, blocking all kernel modules is impractical -- many legitimate programs install kernel modules. For example, some antivirus programs use kernel modules to perform on-demand scanning.

It is possible to make a better decision regarding whether the loading of the module is malicious by looking at other properties of the installer and other associated programs. While a rootkit and an antivirus program might have actions in common (e.g., installing a kernel module), there are many other characteristics that they would be less likely to share.

For example, a rootkit might try to be stealthy by not having a visible window, while the antivirus program will likely advertise its presence to reassure the user. The rootkit program may also install a keylogger, which one would not expect a well-behaved antivirus program to do. By combining various behavioral characteristics (carefully chosen so that they capture the common behaviors associated with malicious code), it is possible to reliably detect rootkit programs. In fact, this general approach, termed "behavioral heuristics," can be applied more broadly, to detect other classes of malicious code such as Trojans, bots and spyware.

Being based on heuristics, this type of system can make mistakes (classifying normal programs as malicious). The normal technique used to deal with this is to have exclusion lists for the common errors, which would then have to be maintained.

Undoubtedly, rootkits are serious and increasingly problematic for computer users. They enable malicious code to remain undetected by most security software. They work by manipulating the results of function calls, which they gain access to by a variety of mechanisms. The good news is that they are detectable, with two mechanisms currently available -- a scanning technology that can detect them after they are installed, and an event-based system that can catch them in the act of installation (by observing their behavior) -- and thus prevent compromise in the first place.

New Web Mail: More Polished, Powerful

Microsoft, Yahoo, and Zimbra betas preview Web mail's new desktop-like interface.
By: Ryan Singel (From the January 2006 issue of PC World magazine)

Taken by Daniel George

Microsoft and Yahoo are poised to make Web-based e-mail more powerful than ever with updates that bring a desktop-style interface to their respective Web mail offerings.

Beta –versions when tested (currently invitation-only) of Windows Live Mail and Yahoo Mail, and also looked at an open-source newcomer called Zimbra. All three apps use an increasingly popular programming technique called Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) to improve on standard Web mail and even Google's Gmail.

As Ajax applications, the mail clients we tested can preload information and update their displays on the fly. So when you open up an e-mail message, you'll see it immediately, rather than having to wait for it to download. And when you delete a message, the application can update instantly, even though the delete request is still being processed in the background.

Yahoo Mail:

Yahoo Mail offers desktop-like features such as a full complement of familiar hot-keys and the ability to use the and keys to select multiple messages. Although it's only a beta, the application is graceful, powerful, and nuanced. Its three-pane layout mirrors that of desktop apps such as Microsoft's Outlook Express and Mozilla's Thunderbird.

Yahoo Mail also mimics the handy tab feature included in many Web browsers, allowing you to open multiple messages in a single window and switch between them without loading a new page. Thanks to some intricate coding, you can quickly delve deep into your inbox, using the familiar scroll bar or the key.

Yahoo Mail's search shines, reaching into attachments as well as e-mail messages, and showing the document snippet where the search term was found. Yahoo Mail also interacts logically with your browser's back button--often a trouble spot for Ajax apps that continually update one "page" in the browser. In contrast, Gmail disables the back button, while Zimbra warns you that using it will log you out.

Windows Live Mail

If you're not familiar with desktop mail apps, Microsoft's Windows Live Mail, which feels more like a tweak to Hotmail than a total rethinking of Web mail, may be a better fit. Like Yahoo Mail, Live Mail lets you drag and drop messages, and right-click to print, forward, and answer messages without opening them first. Live Mail puts its weight on tools that let users add emoticons and formatting to e-mail, and it also integrates powerful calendar, antispam, and antiphishing functions.

The Live Mail service which was tested, which Microsoft emphasizes is still a very early beta, uses a three-column layout similar to Microsoft Outlook's. A scrollable inbox, on-the-fly spelling checking, and enhanced right-click menus are on tap for the next beta.

Zimbra
The beta of Zimbra's open-source offering was rougher around the edges, marred by small, cryptic interface icons and some bugs in the version we tested. But its search and virus protection are good, and Zimbra sports some nifty calendar integration--users can mouse over dates in e-mail to see what activities they have scheduled that day.

But Zimbra's real strength is as a full-fledged communication server, allowing a company to integrate its databases so users can, say, jump from a message with an order number to the order database itself.

Zimbra doesn't offer individual accounts, but broadband providers such as Speakeasy are looking at using it to replace their current Web mail offerings.

Zimbra is available to enterprises right now, and Yahoo and Microsoft each hope to introduce their new interface to their millions of users in the first half of 2006.

cars

interview with Steven J Sasson

Steven J Sasson, inventor of the digital camera.
Photograph, courtesy: Kodak

'Innovation best comes from people who know nothing about the topic'
The Rediff Interview of Steven J Sasson, inventor of the digital camera

August 07, 2006

The world of photography has undergone a radical change in the past few years, especially since the advent of the digital camera. 'Digicams' have made photography much easier and more exciting.

And the man who brought about this revolution in photography is Steven J Sasson. Sasson, an electrical engineer, invented the world's first digital still camera and playback system in 1975 working with Eastman Kodak Company.

He is still a Kodak employee and during his tenure with the company has been involved in the development of Kodak's award-winning range of EasyShare thermal printer docks, commercialisation of retail photo kiosks, industry leading halftone proofer in the graphics market, and advanced technologies in Kodak's professional range.

Sasson grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y, and is a 1972 (BS) and 1973 (MS) graduate of Renssalear Polytechnic Institute in electrical engineering.

"Innovation best comes from people who really know nothing about the topic," says Sasson, who is still on a journey -- that he describes as 'fun with photography' -- to innovate new technologies that will revolutionise photography.

In an interview with rediff.com's Deputy Chief Copy Editor Manu AB, Sasson speaks about innovation and the future of photography.

What was the inspiration behind inventing a digital camera?

Thirty years ago we started many experiments at Kodak Labs. In 1974, I was given a charge-coupled device (it is an image sensor, consisting of an integrated circuit with a group of linked capacitors sensitive to light) . It was a brand new device and I was asked to so some imaging experiments.

Not really knowing what to do, I decided to make an image-capture device, made it portable and I came up with the idea of building a digital camera, different from the conventional camera that existed then.

How was the experience? How did you go about the project?

It was a small effort by me and a few technicians at the lab. We spent a year on this project and in December 1975, we shot the first pictures, which I would call 'film-less photography,' and we could see these photos on television.

The device was nothing similar to the present day digital camera. It was a toaster-sized device, weighing about 8.5 pounds. We took the first black-and-white photographs and tried viewing it on television. We had a board meeting in Kodak after which several questions were raised, and I was asked why people would want to see photos on TV, and how long it would take for the project to become a reality.

I did not have any clear answers. The effort was to do something radically different. And our first consumer camera was launched in 1994 under the name of Apple Quick Take, which was introduced in association with Apple Computers.

How does one think out-of the box, how do you invent things?

Innovation best comes from people who really know nothing about the topic. When I came to Kodak, I did not know much about cameras. When they asked me to experiment with the CCD (charge-coupled device), I did not know what to do.

I just tried an analogist's way to take pictures, I was no photography expert. I could not have built a conventional camera. The ideal way is not to just look to the experts, look to people who have a passion to explore, and those who are not afraid of making mistakes.

Thomas Edison was a prolific inventor and he was always surrounded by people who thought they were all better than him. Inventors spend most of the time being wrong and liking it, being comfortable with failure, because that is how you learn. Inventors have to be resolute and the environment should be tolerant to you. You have to spend a lot of time being wrong than being right.

How has the journey been from inventing the first digital camera to the present day innovations at Kodak?

A lot of innovation has taken place at Kodak in the last 30 years. We have been the pioneers in several technologies in photography. No matter who makes which digital camera you use today, the camera uses a lot of IP (intellectual property) that Kodak first created.

Kodak invented the first megapixel sensor. The first colour filter tray was from Kodak. Image compression up to the JPEG standard and, of course, the first digital camera was also developed at the Kodak Labs. One of our cameras was used in the space shuttle mission in the United States in 1991. We also set up the first photo kiosk in 1994.

What is the internal process by which Kodak keeps itself on the cutting edge of innovation?

We aligned our developments with the computer rather than television, as we realised that computers will be the centre of photography and the television will not be good enough.

We went on to develop the high resolution camera in 1997, a point and shoot sub-$1,000, 8 megapixel consumer camera. We launched the EasyShare system for photos in 2001. We have continued to innovate in EasyShare docks, always innovating technology, making it easy to use in line with George Eastman's motto, 'You press a button and we do the rest.'

He made photography available, and easy to use. In the 1880s, he struggled with photography just as we did in the in 1990s with different type of technologies. We have made technology easy, convenient, exciting, fun in a manner that can be used by young and old.

What is your biggest achievement at Kodak?

I have had a great career at Kodak. I had the opportunity to see the birth of digital photography and see it mature. From the time when we had several arguments on whether digital photography can ever be a reality to actually seeing digital photography completely changing the world of photography has been a special privilege to me.

Kodak is world leader in thermal printing. I was also part of that technology behind it.

Over thirty years, I have also had the privilege of working with the best technology and with fantastic people. And, at the end, to know that I was dealing with something important to people, which is their memories, which are precious to all. I have been very fortunate.

Kodak was a pioneer in developing several new technologies. But why are other firms seen to have an edge over Kodak now?

Kodak led the revolution, the inventions that Kodak did were major ones. We have a portfolio of 1,000 digital camera patterns. These patterns have been licensed by everyone. We have the IP edge throughout the world. The whole industry has undergone a technological revolution over 100 years. We are No. 3 in the world.

In India, we are No. 1 in terms of market share. A lot of the names that you take for granted in the photography field today did not exist thirty years ago. With over 100 years' of experience, we know what people want.

To cite a small example, we realised that it was a chain of pain for people to take a print of a digital image, so we invented the EasyShare dock. Digital technology enables us to offer people what they desire from photography.

How many patents does Kodak hold?

Kodak has over 1,000 digital camera patents. We have a licensing system with camera manufacturers all over the world. We cover anything to do with imaging. We have over 10,000 patents that cover anything with imaging. We also have active licensing programmes.

What are the new projects Kodak is working on? What new developments can we see in the near future?

We are working on new ideas and trends that will interest people. People don't want to carry around huge cameras. So we developed a sleek camera with dual lens, using state-of-the-art technology. You can e-mail, or send photos to a mobile phone which is Bluetooth enabled. We will continue to make photography more interactive.

We are also working on the Kodak Photo Touch software to help you in photo image processing. This software changes the photo automatically, the way you want it to look using applied intelligence. With photo-cropping, youngsters like to improve the way they look, they can go for face improvement technology as customers desire to look good. The software finds the flaws and automatically corrects it.

Aging women like to look better, so the software looks for unwanted features, wrinkles blemished and gives a new look. You can also wipe away any facial problems, which will make you look better, it will all be done automatically. Now this is being used only by professional photographers. We will develop it for the next level of customers, and build it into devices.

This technology will be developed so that it can be adapted to different cultures, to improve the way they look.

We are also looking at photo voice -- extending a wi-fi camera to Internet-based telephone (VoIP) to share photos as your speak to your friends or relatives. Technical perfection will take time. We are working with the fundamental stuff. . . we have to make it fool-proof.

Digital Shoe Box is another project wherein a group of old arbitrary photos over a period of 40-50 years can be scanned, put through KPT (Kodak Photo Touch) to improve it and arrange in a chronological order in an album, everything can be done automatically.

Has the advent of digital photography affected other businesses like film rolls and printing, which were major revenue earners for the company?

In India's context. . . India is a dual consumption market. In India, there is a mass market to use traditional media, Camera penetration is low, about 13 per cent nationally. The urban areas are picking up digital technology and camera. So it doesn't really clash with each other.

Digital photography has thrown up more opportunities. More options are available with digital photo finishing, development and proliferation of digital labs was a result of digital photography, and it has expanded opportunities for all aspects of the imaging business.

Do you think that conventional photography will cease to grow?

There is a mass market for traditional and conventional modes of photography, especially in countries like India. Our efforts will be to enhance the entire process of photography and make it better and easier.

How do you see the Indian market for digital cameras? Will we see a reduction in the prices?

Indian is a growing, very important and exciting market for Kodak. It has been growing rapidly -- traditional as well as digital medium. At similar prices you may get more features in each camera, but Kodak's intent is not really to bring prices down. Prices have dropped dramatically over the years.

You will get a good digital camera below $100-150 prices in the US. We are looking at increasing photo kiosks across the country in hypermarts and super stores.

Do you think innovation is happening in India? What do you think of today's India?

India is an incredible story. It is very exciting to see what is going on in India. You have good education. . . people value education in India. It has different business models. Indian companies are doing well.

For instance, Infosys is among the most innovative companies. I have worked with Infosys on a photo finish project. The good thing about them is that they are willing to take challenges, and try new things, which is very important. The future looks very bright for India.

What is the future of photography?

The future is brilliant, images are becoming easy to deal with and photography is becoming a casual form of communication. Experimental photography is getting very popular. Like my daughter lives to record events and relive the experience of a concert she has been to, through photos and videos.

Sky is the limit for what we are going to do. The challenges are formidable, as photography has opened more challenges than ever. Cameras are marvellous devices and are getting better, smaller, futuristic and cheaper.

The challenge of the future is make smaller and easier devices with more features and to work on the entire photography chain, and to make every element of the chain from capturing the image, to processing, to printing and making the final digital file easy, fun, quick and interactive.

gateway PC

Gateway Uses Latest Intel Chip in New PC

High-end system can be configured as either as desktop or a workstation.

Ben Ames, IDG News Service,Thursday, August 03, 2006 08:00 AM PDT

Gateway will use the new "Conroe" Core 2 Duo chip from Intel to power a PC that users can configure as either a high-end desktop or a workstation, the company said today.

Gateway will pitch its standard E-6610 PC to business customers and educational institutions, or add faster disks and reach a different market of architects and engineers.

That flexibility will allow Gateway to reach the 66 percent of the Windows-based, personal workstation market that uses single-processor machines, said Marc DeMars, director of desktop products for Gateway, of Irvine, California.

Gateway does not build multiprocessor workstations, but has found a market niche by selling Intel's high-end 975X chip set for both workstation and desktop use, DeMars said.

That chip set is a requirement for running the Core 2 Duo chip, and provides a 2-percent or 3-percent performance jump over the previous 955X model, he said. Gateway plans to add more products in this area when Intel releases the professional version of its mid-range Q965 chip set in September.

System Specs

The desktop model of the E-6610 offers 80 to 500GB of storage on SATA hard drives and an ATI graphics card, while the workstation model offers a fast-spinning 73GB SCSI hard drive and an NVidia graphics card.

Both versions use Microsoft's Windows XP OS and Intel's Core 2 Duo E6300 processor.

Intel launched the new chip July 27 as a replacement for its Pentium D chips. Using dual-core design and 65-nanometer architecture, it performs 40 percent faster and draws 40 percent less power, according to Intel. In PC World's exclusive tests, Conroe processors performed exceptionally well.

Gateway is shipping the E-6610 desktop now for $1199 and the workstation version for $1777.

As it prepares to report its quarterly earnings later Thursday, Gateway hopes the new PC will contribute to its trend of fast growth as it chases market leaders Dell and Hewlett-Packard.

Although Gateway ranks a distant third in U.S. PC market share, it has grown faster than all competitors for the past two quarters. Gateway grew 16.3 percent from 2005 to reach U.S. market share of 6.2 percent for the second quarter of 2006, according to Gartner. Dell has 32.0 percent share, and HP has 18.9 percent.

Still, Gateway faces significant challenges; it posted a net loss of $12.3 million for the first quarter, and must continue its search to replace Chief Executive Officer Wayne Inouye, who resigned in February.

trailer 2

trailer

The "millipede" project

A nanomechanical AFM-based data storage system

The "millipede" high-density data storage system is based on micromechanical (MEMS*) components borrowed from atomic force microscopy (AFM). Tiny depressions created with an AFM tip in a polymer medium represent stored data bits that can then be read back by the same tip. Data written in this way can also be erased using the same tip, and the polymer medium can be reused thousands of times. This thermomechanical storage technique is capable of achieving data densities exceeding 1 Tb/in², well beyond the expected limits of magnetic recording.

Although the read-back rate of an individual probe is limited, high data rates can still be achieved by making use of massive parallelism. In our "millipede" system concept, an array consisting of thousands of thermomechanical probes operate in a highly parallel manner, with each individual probe capable of reading, writing and erasing data in its own small storage field. The read- and write-array can be fabricated in large quantities using well-established, low-cost semiconductor microfabrication techniques.

*MEMS: Micro-electrical-mechanical system.

Memory's endpoint (nanotechnology)

Nanotech... use in computer Architecture... the possibilities are growinng ever smaller...
The IBM Millipede project...
The mechanical synapses of IBM's Millipede memory device form a grid - a 64 by 64 array of cantilevers. each one equipped with a silicon tip (bottom)
Picture taken from http://www.physorg.com/newman/gfx/news/millipede.jpg
This narrows to only a few nanometers in diameter. To write data the tip heats up and, as the cantilever darts back and front pockmarks a thin polymer sheet. to read data, a separate sensor detects the presence or absense of a pit. And to erase data, the silicon tip gives a hole a secnd hot tap. which seemlessly eliminates the pit.
Information source: NGM June 2006, pp 117, memory's endpoint (for now)

Can keyboards get more weird?

taken from ICE World Team in Mumbai | April 19, 2006 10:59 IST

Let's start with the roll-up keyboard that has the same measurements as a standard 102-key keyboard, but can be rolled up and put it in your pocket.

The wrist keyboard, as the name suggests, can be worn on your wrist. The SafeType keyboard is designed such that your hands and arms shall be in a more relaxed position while working with it as compared to a traditional keyboard.

Then there's the Virtual Laser Keyboard, which is a laser gadget that projects a virtual keyboard on a table or other suitable material, and then interprets your finger movements and passes them on to your PDA or whatever you have it connected to.

You also have the Frogpad, which is a very tiny keyboard. The manufacturer says you can get up to 40 words per minute if you practice between six to 10 hours with it. But why do they call it a Frogpad?

The Twiddler 2, on the other hand, will take you 'a weekend' to learn typing 30 words per minute, so the Frogpad wins that round. Maybe, you can twiddle your thumbs in the meanwhile.

The Orbitouch creates a keystroke when you slide the two domes into one of their eight respective positions. It also has an integrated mouse, so moving the domes gives you full mouse and keyboard capability. And there's the Datahand, which is aimed at people who get pain in their hands from typing with a traditional keyboard.

Si - nett

Founded in September 2002, SiNett Corporation is focused on designing purpose-built ICs and software to power the next generation of equipment for integrated wired and wireless networks. The company’s OneEdge Switch Processor family makes it possible for network equipment OEMs to lower costs, add compelling features and offer significantly increased performance for wireless access products in the enterprise.

Background

After some initial hesitation, enterprises have begun to embrace wireless networks. Now, with concerns about standards and security largely addressed, the desire for mobility in the workplace — and the improvement in productivity it brings — is driving the demand for wireless networks and applications. At the same time, some companies view wireless as the ideal solution for providing network access for "greenfield" deployments. As a result, WLAN device shipments are exceeding forecasts.

As wireless clients and the WLANs that connect them have increased in number, the need to unify wired and wireless networks has created a substantial and growing market opportunity. Analyst groups (such as Gartner) have predicted a fundamental shift in network design as wired and wireless merge into one. In fact, several OEMs made announcements in 2004 that validate that point.

Enterprises to date have been treating WLAN networks as separate overlay networks from their wired networks, but network managers would prefer to work with a single, unified, seamless network. Users could then take advantage of traditionally wired services (such as authentication and access policy services, VPNs, intrusion detection and prevention, etc.), while accessing the network using the mode that is most appropriate to their application.

Concurrently, network equipment providers are looking for ways to add value and improve the profitability of their products, especially as first-generation WLAN devices are quickly being commoditized. While shipments for WLAN devices have exceeded forecasts, average selling prices for devices like wireless switches are falling quickly. OEMs need new, dedicated silicon technologies that allow them to build more intelligence into their products and improve performance, while maintaining margins and lowering the costs of production.

Until now, the only silicon solutions on the market that meet feature-performance requirements for unified network management were based on technology that was designed for other purposes. These solutions are costly, do not offer compelling features or performance and require a long time to develop.

To meet these market needs, SiNett has developed a completely new silicon and software platform that addresses the unique problems of managing a unified network edge.

One Edge Switch Processors

Built from the ground up to unify wired and wireless enterprise networks, SiNett’s OneEdge Switch Processor is the industry’s first single chip solution that provides high-performance wired and wireless packet processing, robust security, advanced mobility and sophisticated traffic management. OneEdge’s purpose-built silicon architecture enables network equipment OEMs to build next- generation unified access switches, WLAN switches and WLAN appliances/controllers with significant performance and cost advantages over existing solutions.

Until recently, OEMs have been required to use multiple, complex silicon components to build networking equipment that supports integrated wired and wireless networks. Members of the OneEdge Switch Processor family share a common silicon and software architecture platform. As a result, network OEMs can leverage their design investment and cost effectively build a complete product family covering a wide price/performance spectrum for WLAN and unified access switching products.

With a single-chip architecture designed from the ground up with unified networks in mind, SiNett’s OneEdge provides several significant benefits, including a dramatic increase in datapath processing —guaranteed performance of 8 Gbps (worst-case) in full duplex mode for all major functions —and a system bill of materials (BOM) which is just one third to one quarter the cost of current implementations. In addition, OneEdge is optimized for advanced services, such as mobility, voice over WLAN, and multi-mode access point support.

Cisco Route Processor Module for Cisco MGX 8000 Series Multiservices

The Cisco Route Processor Module (RPM-PR), is a high-performance route processor module for the Cisco MGX^™ 8000 Series of Multiservice Switches, which allows service providers to quickly enable new, high-margin IP services using Cisco IOS^® Software at a low marginal cost. The Cisco RPM-PR provides high-quality, scalable, IP and ATM integration using Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) technology to create scalable Internet solutions. The Cisco RPM-PR allows the additions of an MPLS control plane for use by the Cisco Virtual Switch Architecture. The MPLS control plane can be used concurrently with the PNNI and Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP) control planes on the Cisco MGX 8000 family of multiservice switches.

The Cisco RPM-PR brings enhanced performance and functionality to the RPM modules Router Blades for the MGX 8230, 8250 and 8850 Series. Improvements include a high-performance, NPE-400 processor capable of processing more than 350,000 pps, greater DRAM and Flash capacity, and hardware-based error checking and correcting (ECC).

The Cisco RPM-PR enables functionality such as Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) aggregation, IP virtual private networks (VPNs), IP quality of service (QoS), and IP routing.

The Cisco RPM-PR is a double-height line card, which connects to the MGX midplane through an internal OC-6 ATM cell bus. The Cisco RPM-PR supports up to two single-height back cards: four-port Ethernet and one-port Fast Ethernet.

Key Features

The RPM-PR offers the following features:

•High performance

•Over 350,000 pps forwarding

•Up to 512-MB DRAM

•32-MB Flash memory

•Support for 2000 virtual interfaces

•Single bit repair and double/triple bit detection ECC support for DRAM

•1:N redundancy

•Robust IP support

•Border Gateway Protocol Version 4 (BGP4)

•Open Shortest Path First (OSPF)

•Routing Information Protocol (RIP) Versions 1 and 2

•Interior Gateway Routing Protocol (IGRP)

•Enhanced IGRP (EIGRP)

•Intermediate System-to-Intermediate System (IS-IS)

•Static routes

Functionality

Software

The Cisco RPM-PR runs Cisco IOS Software and offers industry leading IP services and solutions. The Cisco RPM-PR supports all major routing protocols used today in service provider environments. The solutions and services the Cisco RPM-PR supports include:

Multiprotocol Label Switching

MPLS is an innovative approach that uses a label-based forwarding scheme which allows service providers to quickly and cost-effectively provision new customers as well as easily offer high-margin value-added services. MPLS offers the security and QoS of Layer 2 transport such as Frame Relay or ATM, but with the any-to-any connectivity of IP

MPLS-Virtual Private Networks

MPLS-virtual private networks (VPNs) deliver IP VPNs with the security and QoS of ATM and Frame Relay. By using Layer 3 routing protocols (such as BGP), the Cisco RPM-PR dynamically establishes network reachability without the complexity of configuring an overlay "mesh."

The Cisco RPM-PR can separate VPN-specific traffic by application, source, destination, and many other criteria. In a MPLS-VPN network architecture, the Cisco RPM-PR can behave as a provider edge router (PE) for providing VPN services. Some MPLS-VPN mechanisms supported on the Cisco RPM-PR are:

• Multiprotocol BGP extensions

•VPN "route-target" extended BGP community attributes

•MPLS forwarding across backbone

• Multiple routing/forwarding instances on the provider edge router