Abstract: A networking appliance includes a chassis, an off-the-shelf motherboard mounted on said chassis, said motherboard including at least one expansion bus, one or more separately removable expansion module mounted on said chassis, and a number of card slots in the expansion module for accommodating expansion cards. A connection arrangement provides a signal connection between the card slots in the expansion modules and the expansion buses.

Abstract: A method of performing connectivity verification in a content routed network including a plurality of routers and wherein messages are transported through the network over a message transport layer, involves sending from an originating router a ping request message over the message transport layer along a user data path to a terminating router using a content routing protocol. The terminating router responds with a ping reply message upon receipt of the ping request message, and the message transport layer is monitored for the ping reply message at the originating router. Trace messages can also be sent through the network to determine whether subscribers are reachable for messages originating from a particular publisher. Also trace messages can be sent through the network to determine whether subscriptions from a particular subscriber are reachable from a particular originating router.