Cariden Technologies - IP/MPLS Planning and Traffic Engineering Software

At Global Crossing, two of the most crucial aspects of our business are network reliability and network performance.

Global Crossing operates a global network that spans 101,000 route miles across four continents containing over 100 Points of Presence (PoPs).

As the capacity planning manager at Global Crossing, it’s my job to ensure there is enough capacity in our network to maintain the highest quality of service standards for our customers at all times. It’s a matter of supplying adequate capacity to the right places at the right times—and at the lowest possible cost.

It is with great enthusiasm that I write to recommend the Cariden MATE product. Global Crossing has been using Cariden MATE since August 2002 as a tool for simulating and optimizing our network and for streamlining our maintenance processes.

Here are some of the outstanding features I would like to highlight:

Cariden MATE provides Global Crossing with MPLS-specific optimizations that we have not seen in any other product. We’ve been able to successfully incorporate MATE’s optimization recommendations during capex planning and network planning. MATE shows us how to sustain outstanding network performance during rapid traffic growth at the lowest possible cost in new hardware.

I like MATE’s streamlined user experience: from raw configurations and demand dumps to reports and tunnel settings. Our former tool required expertise in the tool, which had little to do with networking. I also like the GUI’s convenient methods for setting thresholds, drill-down site views, path analysis, and simulation summary reports. Simulations that formerly took over 100 minutes now take less than four minutes. But most of all, I like the fact that I can run MATE on my laptop and no longer have to connect to a server to run network simulations.

Customer Service. In seven months of using MATE, Cariden has been very responsive to Global Crossing’s requests for improvements or optimizations, such as more convenient route exporting and improved latency calculations.

I would definitely recommend Cariden MATE to others.

Cariden MATE is used by ISPs, Mobile Operators, Ethernet, VPN and Video Providers worldwide.  Our customers range from the largest carriers to many smaller regional operators.

Cariden History: Innovation, Leadership, Results

Cariden was founded in 2001. We became initially well-known for our traffic engineering (TE) software. Our simulation and offline path-computation modules were quickly adopted by the leading ISPs who practiced MPLS TE, often replacing competitors’ software that was judged too slow and cumbersome.

We introduced Metric Optimization, a one-of-a-kind software for IP TE, in 2002. The technology won us many accolades as a scientific feat that had been judged impossible before. The product was adopted by engineering organizations with a mandate to achieve efficiency and a desire not to complicate network operations.

Cariden became profitable in 2003.

By 2005, MATE was deployed by many of the largest carriers in the world.

In 2007, we introduced another one-of-a-kind software. The MATE Visualization Package is a marvel of simplicity. It provides network visibility in a streamlined, and highly affordable manner, “out of the box”.

In 2009, Cariden MATE has been adopted by seven of the eleven Tier 1 ISPs and has emerged as the standard for IP/MPLS planning and traffic engineering.

Thomas Telkamp is responsible for ensuring successful deployments of Cariden’s products, and guides product development. Previously, he worked for Global Crossing as Director of Network Engineering, Director of IP Global Architecture, and Director of Networking Research. Before joining Global Crossing, Thomas worked as a consultant at AT&T-Unisource Communications Services, SURFnet Expertise Centrum, SURFnet, DANTE and Wunderman Cato Johnson.

Thomas’ professional interests include network modeling and analysis, traffic characterization and traffic engineering. He has published on these topics, and is a frequent conference speaker. Thomas is also an active contributor to the IETF.

Arash Afrakhteh manages the development of Cariden products. Mr. Afrakhteh was one of the original employees at Vertical Networks, and the principal architect of their award-winning network management software. He has over ten years of experience developing software products at companies such as Microsoft and Apple. Prior to Cariden, Mr. Afrakhteh was the Director of Engineering at Panopticon and Broadbase.

Mr. Afrakhteh received an Electronics Engineering Bachelors degree from Sharif University in Iran. He has also done post-graduate work in computer science at Amir Kabir and Stanford Universities.

Dr. Alan Gous is responsible for Cariden’s core optimization and control technology. Dr. Gous has over ten years of experience in the development of applied mathematical optimization software, including work at EFG Software, AT&T Labs, and Panopticon Corporation. Dr. Gous is currently a member of the Scientific Advisory Board at Enkata Technologies.

Dr. Gous designed statistical and optimization methods for large-scale systems while completing his doctoral and postdoctoral work at Stanford University.

Arman Maghbouleh is responsible for defining and articulating the company’s product vision. Mr. Maghbouleh has a fifteen-year record of management, software development and research at companies such as Apple Computer, Fidelity Investments, and the Advanced Telecommunications Research Laboratories. Most recently, he was the Director of R&D at Panopticon Corporation.

Mr. Maghbouleh holds a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from Harvey Mudd College, Masters degrees in Computer Science and Statistics from Yale and Stanford Universities respectively, and a Doctorate in Linguistics from Stanford, where he was honored as a Hertz Fellow.

In Brief

Cariden was founded in 2001 with the mission of providing design, planning and operational automation intelligence for managing complex networks. Today, Cariden’s flagship product MATE™ is emerging as the leading easy-to-use solution for traffic management for a diverse set of customers across all aspects of telecommunications.
MATE is being used every day on many of the largest networks in the world:

• Engineering uses MATE to perform failure analysis and traffic management.
• Planning uses MATE to design networks, adjust for growth and perform ‘what-if’ analyses on new and existing networks.
• Operations uses MATE to monitor the network in real-time, shifting traffic around points of congestion and maintaining optimal network performance.

Please browse our web site and write us for more information or to arrange for a free trial of MATE.