TEMPE, AZ -- Opnix, Inc., a leader in the emerging IP Route Optimization market, today announced that it has joined the university-led Internet2(R) research and development consortium. As an Internet2 Corporate Sponsor, Opnix will work together with the Internet2 community to take the first detailed look at the overall performance of the Internet2 network infrastructure. The results of this collaboration will contribute to the Internet2 routing working group and the Internet2 End-to-End Performance Initiative. The Internet2 network infrastructure includes advanced national backbone networks, regional high-performance network aggregation points, called gigaPoPs, and the campus networks being deployed by Internet2 members. Opnix's Orbit 1000 Routing Intelligence System will shed light on the End-to-End performance issues within the combined infrastructure by providing a consistent measurement capability across domains through real-time data gathering on the performance across each path of the infrastructure. In addition, with the use of the Opnix central CORE database, all collected data will be available to the entire Internet2 community to conduct necessary trend and statistical analysis to determine performance capabilities and identify problems. "This is an exciting opportunity for Opnix to play a key role in such an advanced initiative." said Jane Evans, Chief Executive Officer for Opnix. "The Orbit 1000's unique ability to probe such a large and high performance testbed infrastructure, and collect data to such a detailed level will provide a new window into network performance and management." "We are very pleased to be working with Opnix to better understand the performance characteristics of the combined Internet2 network infrastructure," said Guy Almes, Internet2's chief engineer. "We are convinced that high-quality performance measurement is the first step in overcoming the hurdles to reliably providing high-performance end-to-end networking." The first Orbit 1000 installations have taken place in the Armonk, New York PoP, and the Merit Network gigaPoP in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Harvard University, the University of Oregon and the University of Arizona installations will be completed by July 2002.