The importance of the NetBoost acquisition is underscored by the position of former NetBoost chief executive Len Rand, who is now general manager for Intel's Internet Exchange Architecture (IXA) products.

Intel, through a NetBoost software group, has developed special languages for both packet classification and for defining post-classification "action" tasks. A network classification language is used for initial packet classification tasks in a typical switch design. On a higher level for post-classification action stages, Intel has defined a C/C++ user-defined action classification engine (ACE).

A suite of action templates, defined in an Action Services Library, further eases the development of packet-processing applications. The framework of tools from NetBoost constitutes one of the richest APIs developed for an Intel architecture.

"What the API provides is the ability to get at individual packets and manipulate them in a variety of ways," said Kevin Fall, principal network architect of ACE for Intel. Mark Christensen, vice president and general manager of the company's Network Communications Group, said that "our direction is to use the NetBoost APIs as a baseline, porting it to the IXP [network processor] family first, followed by Softcom."

For switch or router developers, the languages would let one high-level instruction specify how packet-header processing is carried out for different classes of users, implementing quality-of-service parameters for Internet Protocol (IP) or asynchronous transfer mode. The ACE modules then would apply a series of actions like encryption, firewall services or Web load balancing. Using the APIs, implementation of network policies up to application layers could be relatively simple, Fall said.

In the Action Services Library that empowers ACE, Intel already has configured action elements such as IP forwarding, packet fragmentation, packet scheduling, protocol translation and signaling.

Competitive shifts

There will be some interesting wrinkles in Intel's competitive base. For example, Nortel Networks Inc. announced an alliance with Intel this past week, in which Nortel's Open IP Environment would be ported to the IXP1200 processor, linking the processor initially to Open Shortest Route First routing protocols and command line interface system management.

Eventually, the Open IP API could link the processor to additional routing protocols and secure tunneling protocols, and to network-management environments like Simple Network Management Protocol. While Open IP is a policy agent, not a policy server, it could extend the benefits of policy management to low-end clients such as Internet appliances or consumer devices.

Jeff Pickering, director of engineering at Nortel's Open IP program, said it is conceivable that ACE and Open IP could compete directly in APIs for advanced network services in the future. Nortel simultaneously has ported Open IP to the Motorola PowerPC and PowerQuicc architectures. In the future, Motorola plans to embed Open IP software directly on the CompactPCI cards produced by its computer group in Tempe, Ariz.

Pickering and Christensen hedged when asked if Intel or Nortel were joining the Common Processor Interface (CPIX) coalition of network-processor vendors, since portions of the ACE and Open IP programs appear to duplicate what CPIX wants to do.

"This is the first instance we know where policy software has been brought to the embedded OEM world," Pickering said. "I was talking about this with Len [Rand] at Intel, and we realized this meant the 'PC-ification' of higher-layer network services."

By opening out its architectures, Intel also allows certain levels of cooperation with advanced pattern-matching and traffic-management chips from the likes of Solidum Systems Corp. and Extreme Packet Devices Inc.

Charlie Jenkins, Solidum's vice president of marketing, who was at the Intel Developer Forum as an Intel partner this week, said that putting the Solidum chip on the IXA bus might place it in direct competition with future Intel network-processor devices carrying the Level One Communications label.

Intel will not finish porting the ACE to the IXP1200 processor architecture until this summer. Until then, the company is offering the software on a board developed by NetBoost, which combines the IXE100 packet-parsing ASIC with a 233-MHz StrongARM 110 RISC device.

Seed money

Intel is sparing no expense to have its architectures gain hold in new communications markets. It will award some $25 million of its $200 million war chest to eight startups. Three, including Mayan Networks Inc., are in IXA markets, and five in the Dialogic-inspired CT Media sector. In addition, Christensen said, seven universities, including Carnegie Mellon and MIT, have launched programs on network-processor development. The projects are funded by Intel and are aimed specifically at IXA.

Intel's Communication Products Group is trying to abandon the unsuccessful pricing strategy it began two years ago. At that time, it price-bombed Layer 2 switches designed for small offices to gain market share in switches and hubs.

The new byword is differentiated functions for e-commerce applications. To create a new product line called NetStructure, Intel has combined traffic-management products from recently acquired IPivot Inc. with a multiservice switch it acquired along with XLNT Designs Inc. (San Diego). These small systems sit between a router and a server farm and perform such duties as Web load balancing, caching and traffic management.

"There are two basic strategies driving this business now: Focus on network solutions above the basic plumbing layer, and design the elements as building blocks for OEMs," said Scott Richardson, general manager of communications Internet and server products at Intel's Communication Products Group. "There might be instances where some of these traffic-shaping functions could be embedded inside a server slot or router blade, but we want to offer them as separate systems."

Intel has aimed a variety of IPivot 71xx platforms at either commerce acceleration or traffic direction, depending on how many encrypted Secure Socket Layer sessions can be handled. Over time, the entire family can move from SSL to IP Secure, if IP security gains customer acceptance, said Barry Hartman, manager of IPivot product marketing. As virtual private network functions become part of larger security schemes, the small security routers Intel acquired through its purchase of Shiva Corp. could eventually play a role in the NetStructure line as well.

So far, the program has been oriented strictly to the better shaping of IP traffic. But Richardson said that the end game would be to bring in the CT Media objects developed at Dialogic for circuit-switched voice, and apply them directly to future NetStructure products that would link shaped IP flows to packetized and circuit-switched voice. Such a program is still in its infancy, Richardson said, but Intel's long-term development programs assume an eventual unification of Dialogic CT Media and the IPivot/XDI packet-shaping worlds.