Early last month, in a drafty warehouse somewhere off Route 101 between San Francisco and San Jose, dozens of network engineers hammered away at hundreds of products tested as part of the 2004 NetWorld+Interop InteropNet Labs.

For more than a decade, iLabs has served as a neutral proving ground where vendors can test their products in accordance with emerging standards. The iLabs team prides itself on a long history of providing an honest assessment of how useful these technologies will or won't be in your network. As the media sponsor of InteropNet Labs, Network World had exclusive access to the pre-stage event that literally sets the stage for the testing demonstrations showcased on the trade-show floor this week in Las Vegas.

The three focal points of this year's iLabs endeavors are:

•  Interoperability of VoIP products using Session Initiation Protocol (SIP).
•  Secure wired and wireless LAN access based on the IETF's 802.1X standard.
•  Multi-protocol Label Switching gear that supports various MPLS VPN technologies and new developments in IPv6/IPv4/MPLS integration.

We've placed Network World Lab Alliance partners Joel Snyder on the SIP team and Rodney Thayer on the 802.1X LAN access security team to provide a closer look at the state of those two standards. Additionally, Network World Managing Editor Jim Duffy interviewed three of the MPLS testers.

Main articles:

InteropLabs Net SIP white papers

• What is SIP?
• Getting Started with SIP
• Migrating to SIP
• What is ENUM?
• SIP Resources