Routescience?

Mon Aug 20 22:29:51 UTC 2001

I'm not really qualified to evaluate the technology, but the 4 minute 
flash demo on the site states that the system uses non-BGP approach to 
determine response time and load on selected links, as an alternative to 
just selecting least-hop AS statistics with BGP. Check out the 
'technology' section of the Web site.

TR

On Monday, August 20, 2001, at 05:43 PM, Irwin Lazar wrote:

>
> Is anyone out there familiar with a company called "routescience"?  I 
> caught
> the below press release at and wanted to find out if anyone can relay 
> any
> real-world experiences with their system?  It almost sounds like they 
> are
> using something like a Keynote Systems performance monitoring tool to 
> inject
> BGP path preference information.
>
> TIA,
> Irwin
>
> ---
> ROUTESCIENCE DEVELOPS PLATFORM TO CONTROL BGP INTERNET ROUTING
> RouteScience, a start-up based in San Mateo, California, unveiled
> plans for a unique "route controller" platform for optimizing a
> company's multiple ISP links by providing real-time performance
> measurements of paths across the Internet to end users.  Using
> these performance metrics and customer preferences for ISP link
> cost, RouteScience's PathControl platform determines the best ISP
> path for end-users and can then automatically update the
> organization's edge routers with the best path routing
> information.  The route performance measurement relies on a
> patent-pending closed-feedback loop system that does not use
> pings.  Route updates are provided to the edge routers using
> standard Border Gateway Protocol.  A large company with multiple
> ISPs would use the systems to route traffic to the ISP links that
> actually deliver the best end-to-end performance.  The solution
> could also be used by a Tier-2/3 service provider to route
> traffic to multiple backbone carriers depending on cost and real-
> time performance metrics.  The company said default BGP chooses a
> sub-optimal route 50% - 80% of the time, depending on the number
> of alternative ISP paths.  Of those routes that can be improved,
> an alternate ISP is on average 2 times faster.  RouteScience
> claims its system provides deep visibility into ISP performance
> and could fundamentally change network service agreements and
> pricing by moving control over Internet routing decisions to the
> network edge.  http://www.routescience.com
> RouteScience, August 20, 2001