Yikes.. another aha for me on this long weekend off for me. SaTurday 2am.
See previous post this morning.
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rcrwireless.com
Sonus virtualizes its session border controller
Posted on 09 October 2013 by Kelly Hill.
Sonus Networks has launched its first software-based session border controller (SBC), positioning the company to better compete as networks evolve toward less purpose-built hardware and more software-defined networking (SDN) and network function virtualization (NFV).
The Sonus SBC SWe is equivalent to the company’s hardware-based SBC 5000 series, and Sonus says that it is the only vendor thus far to offer the same code base across both its SBC hardware and software. That standardization allows customers to choose from the same features across either hardware and software-defined networking (SDN) deployments, and mix-and-match if they desire.
“Separating the SBC from the underlying hardware is a game-changer for Sonus,” said David Tipping, Sonus’ vice president and general manager.The virtualized SBC is scalable from as few as 25 up to an unlimited number of sessions, limited only by the CPUs and resources a customer wants to dedicate to the solution — which the company says is an industry first.
Tipping said that while customers are comfortable deploying software for small-scale needs, they still expect to need hardware-based SBCs for large-scale deployments. Tipping said that Sonus has tested the SWe for handling “greater than 100,000 sessions,” while just one CPU can handle 1,000 sessions.“We truly don’t say to you, ‘use this product up to this capacity’ or ‘use it if these features don’t make a difference to you,’” Tipping said. “This is a fully-featured product that gives end customers the ability to choose based on their needs, not based on our limitations.
Tipping said that Sonus is trying to “tear down the belief in the industry … that virtualization is not as good as hardware-based.”Irwin Lazar, vice president and service director at Nemertes Research, said that the new SWe gives Sonus “a chance to play in the SDN and NFV space.”He said the enterprise market has already embraced software-based networks as a good way to reduce the costs of hardware, improve reliability, and set up protective redundancies in their systems.
Lazar said that a software-based SBC also potentially opens up new doors for Sonus with the ability to more easily bundle its product with those of partners and find new distribution channels.Tipping said that customer decisions on whether to go with software or hardware SBCs will likely depend on whether they already have the infrastructure and support for a virtual environment, and if they feel comfortable.
“For those who are technology-forward, this is going to feel very normal and natural for them. I really do believe that we’ll see a lot of interest in the SWe,”
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businesswire.com
WESTFORD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sonus Networks, Inc. (Nasdaq: SONS), a global leader in SIP communications, today introduced the Sonus SBC SWe, the industry’s first software-based Session Border Controller (SBC) architected to deliver unlimited scalability with the same advanced features and functionality of the Sonus SBC 5000 Series on a virtualized platform.The SBC SWe is feature equivalent to Sonus’ hardware-based SBC 5000 Series. The only difference between the Sonus SBC SWe and the Sonus SBC 5000 Series is how customers choose to deploy it: on industry-standard servers or in virtualized environments.
Scalable from as few as 25 to an unlimited number of sessions, the user-defined scope of the SBC SWe means that Sonus customers get to choose where they reside on the performance curve. Sonus will provide customers with a set of performance specifications for customers’ host platforms, and customers can then rapidly expand capacity, calls per second, features, transcoding and security capabilities with a simple license key as business demands change.
Sonus is the only vendor on the market with the same hardened code base across its hardware and software SBC portfolio, giving customers complete investment protection and peace of mind about the security of their communications network.
By leveraging the same codebase and management interfaces, customers can seamlessly add the SBC SWe to networks with existing Sonus hardware-based infrastructure.
For customers looking to leverage new and existing platforms to support network functions virtualization (NFV) functionality, the SBC SWe will allow customers to deploy a fully featured SBC co-resident with other applications.The SBC SWe can be readily deployed into existing virtualized infrastructure. The portability and flexibility of the SBC SWe solution makes it the ideal choice for service providers and partners that have invested in virtualization technology, prefer pre-packaged “solutions in a box,” require remote network deployments or want to expand opportunities into new geographic markets where deploying a hardware solution would be impractical or cost prohibitive.
Infonetics Research estimates that more than 60 percent of enterprise SBCs – forecast at $243 million for 2013 – ship with 800 SIP sessions or less. With the Sonus SBC SWe, enterprise customers can now get the high-performance SBC capabilities they want – robust security, superior voice and video quality, centralized policy management and broad interoperability for Unified Communications (UC) – without paying a high upfront price.
For larger enterprise customers that might require a physical SBC in their data centers, the Sonus SBC SWe enables them to extend the same SBC capabilities to remote locations and branch offices without deploying more hardware at each location.
The ability to almost instantaneously increase session count with a license key will be a tremendous asset for enterprises. Retail call centers often experience an influx of communications – voice calls, video chats, instant messaging, etc. – at the onset of the holiday season. However, there are times when call centers can’t predict volume peaks, such as retailer offers or new product introductions. In instances such as these, new sessions can be quickly enabled on the SBC SWe with a license.
Quotes:“Sonus customers can now move seamlessly between hardware and software solutions, with assurance that their existing communications and network investments are fully protected,” said David Tipping, vice president and general manager, SBC Business, Sonus. “Unlike most virtualized SBCs on the market today, with the Sonus SBC SWe, service providers and enterprises are not ‘boxed in’ by hardware and no longer have to compromise on features or functionality when moving to software. Put simply, the Sonus SBC SWe sets a new bar for what customers should expect in SBC performance.”
"Security was recently cited by enterprises as the second leading barrier to Unified Communications deployment. New types of traffic – voice, video, messaging – traverse the IP network, and unsecured borders could lead to unwanted attacks,” said Diane Myers, principal analyst, Infonetics Research. “One of the strengths of the SBC SWe is that Sonus incorporates security and interworking experience into a ‘bring your own’ platform approach.”
“More than 67 percent of companies have virtualized Unified Communications applications to reduce costs, improve resiliency and enable more efficient utilization of server resources. The ability to run Unified Communications infrastructure on virtual servers is critical buying criteria,” said Irwin Lazar, vice president nemertes research.
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