One more competitor in the high-end switch routing segment. It's getting very crowded. Remember too much competition will drive down profits.
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Newbridge Networks Announces Carrier Switched Routing Product
Portfolio
ATLANTA, GEORGIA--Delivers First ''Business Class'' IP VPN Solution Framework.
Newbridge Networks (NYSE: NN; TSE; NNC) today announced the availability of Release 1.0 of its Carrier Switched Routing product portfolio. Carrier
Switched Routing is a solution framework that enables service providers to offer scalable, reliable and predictable IP Virtual Private Networking (VPN) services to
meet the diverse needs of business customers.
Carrier Switched Routing supplies service providers with the infrastructure necessary to create ''Business Class'' IP VPN services, such as advanced bandwidth
management capabilities, while reducing IP network operations costs. Unlike conventional Internet and service provider IP offerings, the Switched Routing solution
supports the creation and rapid deployment of new revenue generating business services over a common multi-service infrastructure with minimal incremental costs.
With its differentiated service offerings, Carrier Switched Routing Release 1.0 can support mission-critical information and time-sensitive applications over the same
network used to deliver conventional LAN and WAN traffic.
''Service providers are looking to Carrier Switched Routing to participate in the emerging $11 billion IP VPN market,'' said Jim Arseneault, Vice President, IP and
Internetworking Products Group, Newbridge Networks. ''With Carrier Switched Routing, service providers can differentiate their offerings and attain much higher
margins on IP services, while reducing the overall costs associated with managing their IP infrastructure. This makes it an extremely attractive solution.''
The Carrier Switched Routing Product Portfolio
The Carrier Switched Routing product portfolio delivers a ''virtual'' terabit routing infrastructure for established and new generation service providers. This virtual
router can be built to match the scale, topology and functionality requirements of the service provider. The Switched Routing portfolio starts with the industry
leading Siemens / Newbridge MainStreetXpress(tm) 36170 MultiServices Switch platform, which provides a scalable, connection-oriented virtual router
backplane. The MainStreetXpress 56020 Routing Services Control Point (RSCP) provides routing policy and information, emulating the functions of a conventional
router's processor and policy server, on a network-wide basis. Finally, a variety of standalone and integral Service Points deliver a host of connectivity options for
the virtual router for a variety of LAN and WAN technologies.
Standalone service points, typically used as customer located equipment, include the MainStreetXpress 36035 Ethernet Service Unit, and the MainStreetXpress
36075 FDDI Service Unit. Integral service points can include any of the breadth of interface cards for the MainStreetXpress 36170 Multiservices Switch, provided
that an Internetworking Services Card (ISC) is first installed in the MainStreetXpress 36170 Switch. The ISC card enables all of the existing MainStreetXpress
36170 interface cards to take on Layer 3 forwarding capabilities, and a single card can support up to 700 service points. A single Carrier Switched Routing
Release 1.0 network can scale to support as many as 12,800 secure IP VPNs.
High Margin, Differentiated Services
Carrier Switched Routing leverages the industry-leading MainStreetXpress 46020 Network Manager. The 46020 delivers end-to-end network and service
management with partitioned customer views to enable the rapid deployment of secure enterprise-wide services. In addition, usage-based billing and verifiable
Service Level Agreements can be tied to individual service offerings to maximize the benefits to enterprise customers.
''The Newbridge Carrier Switched Routing product offering shows the strength of a centrally managed architecture for delivering IP VPN services across an ATM
core network,'' said Paul Doolan, Chief Technology Officer of Ennovate Networks, a supplier of multi-service IP edge switches. ''Our Ennovate Envoy product
line has been designed specifically to support the provisioning and delivery of premium IP services from the edge of the carrier network. Carrier Switched Routing is
an excellent example of the type of QoS capable network that we envision our product complementing.''
Minimizing Operations Costs
According to a recent study conducted by the Yankee Group, many of the features inherent to the Carrier Switched Routing solution can dramatically reduce the
costs associated with deploying IP VPNs. This includes Carrier Switched Routing's center-weighted VPN management capabilities, as well as its ability to
dynamically provision network resources to meet real-time application and network demands.
''Carrier Switched Routing directly addresses the most pressing challenges that keep IP VPN service providers from meeting today's service demands at affordable
costs,'' said Eric Hindin, Director for The Yankee Group. ''It should allow scalable, differentiated services to be deployed over existing network infrastructures,
while reducing the costs associated with maintaining these infrastructures, and that's exactly what service providers are looking for.''
Carrier Switched Routing Leverages Standards
The Carrier Switched Routing Solution incorporates a number of key existing and proposed industry standards for the effective delivery of ''Business Class'' IP
services. Predominant among these are CSI (Carrier Scale Internetworking) and MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching). By incorporating both of these
technologies into its Carrier Switched Routing solution, Newbridge offers the flexibility to meet a variety of service provider's IP needs today.
Ross Callon, an active member of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) MPLS working group, said; ''CSR uses an efficient and highly manageable
combination of connectionless and connection-oriented technologies to provide scalable support for Internet IP services and VPNs.''
CSI is an industry specification that was drafted by leading organizations from the internetworking industry. Initially announced last October by Newbridge, Siemens
and 3Com, the CSI specifications have progressed and are intended to be logged with the ATM Forum at an upcoming meeting. This framework was specifically
designed to address the needs of service providers offering VPN services with differentiated services capabilities on top of a connection-oriented ATM
infrastructure. MPLS addresses the performance and scalability issues within large IP backbones. It is scheduled to be certified by the IETF in early 1999.
Pricing and Availability
Release 1.0 of Carrier Switched Routing is in trial today at two major service providers. It will be rolled out to an additional five trial sites by year-end. Pricing is
based on the size and functionality required in the network.
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Trial at two major SPs, and five more are planned. If all or some of them deploy, this will very likely take some mkt share away from csco.
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