MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. and CUPERTINO, Calif. -- cPacket Networks andRMI Corporation (RMI) announced today that they have collaborated to greatlysimplify the design process for network equipment manufacturers who wish toadd real-time, complete packet inspection to their current and nextgeneration products, by testing and supporting the interoperability of theirrespective processors.

"Complete" packet inspection is a methodology where 100% of the bytestransmitted over a network link - including both headers and payload - areexamined in real time. Complete packet inspection enables such crucialfeatures as network traffic monitoring, enhanced security, load balancing,integrated test and measurement, and lawful intercept to be performed withunsurpassed precision, economy, and speed by network switches, routers, orother devices. It is a significant improvement over deep packet inspection.

cPacket offers a unique chip that performs complete packet inspection at 20gigabits per second. RMI, the leading provider of multi-core, multi-threadedMIPS-64-Based(TM) processors, has worked closely with cPacket to test andprove the interoperability of cPacket's chip with RMI's XLR(TM) Processor.

By combining the cPacket chip with the XLR Processor, front-end packetinspection eliminates undesirable traffic, freeing the XLR processor todeliver higher performance in the control plane and more throughput in dataplane operations. This results in extremely efficient use of valuableprocessing resources. An Ethernet interface on the cPacket chip connectsdirectly to the data interface on the XLR processor, eliminating the needfor designers to tie up the system bus.

RMI's XLR Processor family is a cost effective, single-chip solutionproviding a key building block for applications such as integrated networksecurity, web services, virtualized storage, server offload and intelligentrouting and switching systems. The XLR Processor provides industry-standardinterfaces and an extensive set of connectivity options, and combines thepower of an innovative multiprocessing, multi-threaded architecture with thesimplicity of an XLR-enhanced leading edge, general purpose MIPS64(TM)machine. This enables the development of wire speed, software-drivenapplications across multiple platforms.

cPacket's technology provides for complete inspection of every bit in everypacket at wire speed including parsing of the protocol header, and regularexpression searching in the payload. Provisioning the chip is supported by asimple and powerful template-based application programming interface (API)which enables a "zero programming" model.

According to Mark Litvack, director of business development at RMI, thecombined solution provides network equipment designers with a unique,low-power, economical solution for true 20-gigabit processing in real time."Our customers will greatly benefit from combining cPacket's unprecedentedcomplete packet inspection solution with our popular XLR Processor," saidLitvack. "The result is a truly versatile and high-performance platform thatnot only simplifies product development, but significantly shortens time tomarket for products with such enhanced capabilities."

cPacket Networks Inc.

RMI Corp.