Wayne State's High-Speed Networking Laboratory in the computer science department has received a grant of $106,950 worth of advanced hardware equipment and software. The hardware equipment and software was donated by Ixia, a Calabasas, Calif.-based company that develops multi-port traffic generators, and performance/conformance analyzers that are used in high-speed computer networking.

Ixia's donation to Wayne State, in partnership with Internet2, is part of its university equipment donation effort to help further advancements in Internet research and development.

"We are very grateful to Ixia and its commitment to supporting universities such as Wayne State. Ixia is a leading provider of multi-port traffic generation and performance analysis systems. The state-of-the-art hardware and software grant from Ixia will foster networking research in our laboratory and contribute to improving hands-on training available to our students," said Professor Sherali Zeadally, who is also the founder and director of Wayne State's High-Speed Networking Laboratory.

"Ixia is very pleased with the response to the IxUPP donation program developed in conjunction with Internet2," said Eran Karoly, vice president of marketing for Ixia. "By providing equipment to universities like Wayne State, Ixia strives to assist in the education and development of a generation of engineers who are well equipped to face the challenges of tomorrows networks while becoming familiar with cutting edge equipment."

The High-Speed Networking Laboratory at Wayne State is engaged in research and education in computer networking. "The main mission of our research is to invent, design, implement, and analyze the performance of prototype novel concepts in the areas of computer networks and operating systems. The high-speed networking laboratory addresses the challenge of providing scalable, high-performance systems by exploiting low-cost, standard commodity technologies and networks," Zeadally said.

Over the last few years the networking laboratory has been supported by numerous grants from several computer corporations including Compaq, IBM, Sun Microsystems, Alteon Systems and others.

Wayne State University is a premier institution of higher education offering more than 350 academic programs through 13 schools and colleges to more than 31,000 students in metropolitan Detroit.