Merit's network routing experience dates back to the early 1970's with the development of its in-house
"Internodal Protocol" for its Michigan backbone network. In the 1980's, Merit adapted its network to route the
standards based Internet Protocol (IP).
With the awarding of the NSFNET contract in 1987, Merit broadened the scope of its routing research and
development to include interdomain routing. In particular, Merit played an active role in the development
and deployment of the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) on the Internet.
Other Merit initiatives have included the development of the Routing Assets Database (RADb) and Route
Server technology as part of the Routing Arbiter project, leadership of the GateD Consortium, and the
NSF-sponsored Internet Performance Measurement and Analysis project.
NextHop Technologies, a Merit spin-off
company, grew out of the GatesD consortium activity.
BGP:Inspect, web-based BGP data analysis software,
builds upon Merit's traditional role as the operator of the RADb, with the goal of adding security to the operation of Internet
routing protocols such as BGP.
