Packet Design LLC last week spun off two new companies to further develop and market its network technologies. One of the new spinoffs, Packet Design will offer a line of network appliances that extends the routing control plane to address the reliability, performance, scalability and predictability of IP networks. The second spinoff, Precision I/O, will commercialize a high-speed network architecture developed by Packet Design that will let servers take advantage of increasing networking speeds, including 10G bit/sec Ethernet. The parent company will maintain a majority ownership in the spinoffs and will continue to assist in their development and funding, and manage common services. Packet Design LLC founder Judy Estrin will be chairman of both new companies.

Redback Networks recently announced it has extended its partnership with Sheer Networks and added Cplane to its Solution Alliance Program. These operational-support-systems partners aim to ease provisioning and management of IP/Multi-protocol Label Switching VPN services enabled by the Redback SmartEdge 800 router. CPlane provides software, called ServiceControl, to provision and engineer service providers' packet networks for improved service performance. Redback's partnership with Sheer now includes support of the SmartEdge 800.