SUPERCOMM — Powering the way to advanced communications applications that run across heterogeneous networks, companies at the SUPERCOMM conference, underway in Chicago, showed off a range of new services and tools to enable service providers and enterprises to develop, deploy and maintain those apps.
Softswitch provider Metaswitch Networks, which has made applications and services the focus of its strategy going forward, unveiled enhancements to its MetaSphere platform, that “further define its role as the universal application platform of choice for carrier networks.” MetaSphere will now include advanced applications and business telecom services in a single, SIP-based system, the company said.
Metaswitch also said that its “Innovators Community,” created last spring, now has 500-plus people from 200 companies creating apps for such tasks as improving customer service, enhancing network diagnostic tools, and processing billing records.
At its customer forum in Las Vegas last spring, Metaswitch previewed an era of fully converged communications on multiple devices. Chris Mairs, CTO of softswitch provider MetaSwitch, demonstrated a series of new voice applications and advised the independent service providers and CLECs present “to start thinking more about service delivery and applications services as a separate business from the pipes they provide.”
Billed as “a social networking site for VoIP application development,” the Innovators Community is designed to enable Metaswitch engineers, service provider customers and third party developers, to share ideas, technical information, APIs, completed code and applications.
“This was never about granting limited access to a few APIs and some of our documentation,” said Metaswitch CEO John Lazar, in a statement. “What we have done in fact is to give direct access to the Metaswitch engineering team and our community of collaborative third parties.”
Verizon Business (VZ), meanwhile, said it has created a cloud-based Application Assurance service to make sure such applications are working as designed. A Software-as-a-Service offering, Application Assurance will enable Verizon’s Private IP customers to monitor their applications and their network traffic. The back end is powered by Fluke Networks’ Visual Performance Manager.
Application Assurance “tracks performance throughout the extended enterprise,” said Blair Crump, group president of worldwide sales for Verizon Business, in a statement, “and identifies potential vulnerabilities to help IT managers regain control, safeguard assets, and keep video, voice and data traffic flowing smoothly.”
For applications to run smoothly, interoperability is also key. Vendors are using transcoding to make sure applications work across multiple provider networks. That’s the focus of a panel session on Wednesday afternoon entitled “The Transcoding Path to IP Network Interoperability.” The panel will include executives from GENBAND, Verizon Communications and Nokia Siemens Networks.
“Carrier consolidation, the convergence of fixed and mobile networks, and the prevalence of all-IP network architectures are all driving a growing need for transcoding in today’s communications networks,” said GENBAND, in a statement.
