Andrews & Arnold Ltd
BRACKNELL

Andrews & Arnold Ltd Research & Development

We have a thriving R&D department working on new projects. This page gives a few clues on what we are working, but we are not making any firm commitments here. If you are interested in any of the projects detailed here, or would like to beta test anything, please email us.

FB6000 platform

The new FB6000 series hardware platform is finally here and we are putting together the solutions that will provide super high speed wire speed gigabit routing and filtering. More to come...

Some serious bonding solutions

Whilst we are still working on some of the final hardware and finishing touches to the FB6000 L2TP router, there are also a number of variations of the system that are being worked on as well.

One area of research is how to make the most of bonding multiple IP links. This is ADSL, SDSL, cable, etc. Different providers, NAT and no NAT, different speeds, packet loss, latency and jitter... This trick is to find a solution that will allow any number of links to be used to the full extent possible as a usable aggregate link.

This is ambitious, but we expect results soon and will have solutions to sell to ISPs and end users to provide the ultimate internet connectivity in both speed and resilience.

More details as we make them happen!

Advanced L2TP router

We are working now on a new high speed high capacity L2TP router for use on our new igigabit BT Central pipe being installed May 2008. Work is progressing steadily, and the hardware platform is proving to be excellent. Once again, Watchfront Ltd are producing custom hardware which will result in launch of this as a FireBrick product later in the year. This new platform will allow AAISP to offer:-

• Multiple circuit downlink sharing/bonding as standard. This will allow any number of lines to be used concurrently with quick fallback in the event of a failure. This means 2Mb/s circuits can be combined to give 4Mb/s, 6Mb/s or 8Mb/s with only the cost of the extra line. Our usage based tariffs make multiple lines like this very cost effective for higher speed and resilient links and this will mean no extra equipment needed at our end. New ADSL2+ products allowing up to 24Mb/s will be usable with this to allow extremely high speeds of connectivity.
• Multi-line reverse path filtering. Unlike BTs classic 155Mb/s BT Central where packets are only allowed up a link if they are routed down it, we will allow packets up a link from any IP address routed down a group of lines to the same customer. This will allow uplink bonding using equipment such as the FireBrick 105 with no problems.
• Fast monitoring using LCP echoes. We can detect a failure within 10 seconds to ensure rapid fallback for multiple lines, and rapid reporting of failure. BT used to have 20 minute timeouts.
• Integrated handling of dialup/ISDN fallback using the same termination point will allow more controlled fallback operations.
• Full IPv6 handling with native IPv6 over PPP over ATM and IPv6 tunneled to IPv4 endpoints, all handled directly in the router.
• Closed User Group (CUG) allowing multiple sites access to each other but not the internet, and integrating with hosted servers in the data centre.
• Precise accounting. Unlike BTs vague 2 hour(ish) accounting reports used for our usage based charging, the new router will generate reporting for the exact hour, allowing our usage based charging to be precise, with no grey areas.
• Attack control. Unlike BTs classic 155Mb/s BT Central which we know will fall over with 70,000 packets per second for 4 minutes, we expect to be able to handle at least wire speed gigabit attacks, limiting traffic to each customer to a rate that they can handle and so protecting BTs network and avoiding any impact on other customers. Exact performance, and what part of BT then breaks, is yet to be seen!

If you have more ideas, do let us know.

Continuous Quality Monitor

AAISP's now infamous continuous quality monitoring facilities are the first within the industry, yet continue to identify subtle but important faults within BT's network. We plan to launch a comprehensive product to allow other ISPs to make use of this technology as well as updating our own systems to accommodate more customers and faster reporting. Only recently has BT acknowledged that was is a problem with new Juniper BRAS equipment which they took 6 months to fix, yet only AAISP has reported the problem to BT as a core fault (until it was made public). We are keen to deploy this technology to other ISPs quickly and will be offering loan/evaluation equipment and training free of charge as part of a concerted effort to ensure BT provide a quality network to all. This will be launched later in the year as yet another FireBrick product thanks to custom hardware development by Watchfront Ltd.

This is just one area where AAISP is leading the industry in this innovative development of new monitoring and reporting techniques.

Attack Detection/Management

We are also working on future products that are designed to identify network attacks and take action to stop them affecting other customers.

Future FireBricks

Well, there will always be something on the cards, but we can say that we are working on the big brother of the current FireBrick 105, not a replacement. It'll be fast and powerful and expensive, but not yet available. Watch this space.

Having said that, the current FireBrick is getting pushed to it's limits by some customers at 10Mb/s performance, and we are, of course, working on successors.