GateD®, whose legacy goes back to the early days of the Internet with the founding of NSFNet in 1987, is the industry leading brand for 3rd party routing software. Its IPv6 routing stack has been in deployment since 1997. GateD also boasts of the first 3rd party inter-domain multicast routing stack, which has been in deployment since 1997. Routing and switching software is available as source or as a complete turnkey solution for SMB and Enterprise L2/L3 switches.

NextHop’s Carrier Routing Source, GateD NGC, is a complete control-plane solution, with all requisite protocols packaged conveniently for inclusion in a variety of next-generation carrier devices. Available components include GateD Fast OSPF, GateD BGP, GateD IS-IS, GateD DVMRP, DateD PIM-SM, GateD PIM-SSM, GateD PIM-DM, GateD MSDP, GateD MP-BGP for IPv6, GateD IS-IS for IPv6, and GateD Fast OSPF3. Equipment manufacturers can pick and choose from these individual components or license a variety of packages targeted at specific applications.

NextHop’s Enterprise Routing Source, GateD ERS, is a software suite optimized for memory-constrained embedded systems or smaller networks, and meets the needs of customers such as appliance manufacturers, security hardware companies (for example, firewalls and Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS)), enterprise equipment manufacturers, and small office/home office (SOHO) equipment manufacturers and original device manufacturers (ODMs), both in today’s IPv4 networks, and for tomorrow’s IPv6 networks.

NextHop’s Switching Source, GateD NGS, software provides a comprehensive Ethernet control plane for enterprise class fixed-port, stackable, and chassis based switches. NGS is the most feature complete layer 2 (L2) control plane offering available, providing substantial benefits for creating of best-in-class managed enterprise switches. Significant features include: a complete management framework, simplified hardware support, and a comprehensive VLAN solution.

NextHop’s Switching Turnkey, comprises GateD solutions with integrated management and system services, is the world's only hardware agnostic turnkey software solution.