May 27, 2008

Zeugma Systems Unveils Service Delivery Router

Zeugma Systems unveiled its flagship product today, the Zeugma Services Node (ZSN). The ZSN is a service delivery router (SDR) that combines massive compute resources with next-generation capacity, service awareness, and subscriber awareness in a carrier-grade, fully redundant system. The result is a new class of equipment that enables service providers to:

*Rapidly prototype and launch new revenue-generating services,
*Identify and monitor session flows on a highly granular per-subscriber, per-service basis,
*Manage individual session flows in order to enforce policy-based quality of service (QOS) and capacity,
*Develop applications, such as targeted ad insertion, that add value to individual session flows,
*Reduce the number and types of edge devices required to deliver high-value services while performing standard broadband aggregation and subscriber management functions.
 

The rapid prototype and rollout of new services is achieved via the Zeugma Open Application Sandbox (OAS). The OAS is a framework able to support a multiplicity of applications developed by Zeugma, the service provider, or even third parties. The Zeugma OAS runs on a linearly scalable, high performance compute grid, giving broadband service providers (BSPs) a platform that is truly limitless in its potential to support new services. Application program interfaces (APIs) give applications running on the Zeugma OAS the ability to continuously and dynamically modify the behavior of underlying deep packet inspection (DPI) functions and the dynamic bandwidth manager. This allows, for example, finely-targeted ad insertion, QOS-enhanced over the top (OTT) video, content and URL filtering, enhanced VOIP, active quality of experience (QOE) monitoring, and many other applications.

According to Kevin Woollard, BT technical strategist, office of the CTO, “As an operator we need highly scalable, high performance solutions that allow BT to deliver applications and services in the future that we haven’t even thought of yet. We are currently investigating the Zeugma Services Node’s capabilities, and are excited by the potential of the technology. Whether BT, Zeugma, system integrators, or third-party developers write the applications, the ZSN appears to offer the embedded compute resources able to support them.”

Designed Explicitly for Broadband Service Delivery
The ZSN provides a new level of intelligence, extensibility, and flexibility to broadband service providers through its unique platform architecture, which is composed of the following elements:

1. Compute Blades. The 14-slot Z7 can be configured with up to thirteen Compute Blades (CBs) while the 6-slot Z2 can accommodate up to five CBs. Each CB provides up to 40,000 DMIPS (Dhrystone millions of instructions per second) of processing capacity, yielding a system that scales to 520,000 DMIPS, the equivalent of 520 billion non-floating point operations per second. The ZSN dynamically load balances applications across all available CBs. CBs can be added or removed without impacting system performance and the compute grid will automatically expand and contract to optimize available resources.

2. Traffic Blades. For high-speed broadband aggregation, traffic forwarding, and deep packet inspection, Traffic Blades (TBs) are provided with either 10 x 1GE ports or 6 x 10GE ports. This provides up to 720 Gbps of unidirectional interface capacity on the Z7 and 240 Gbps on the compact Z2.

3. Zeugma Open Application Sandbox (OAS). The ZSN is the first carrier-grade platform to include a native application execution environment. In a manner similar to general-purpose operating systems, the Zeugma OAS not only provides APIs for system control functions but also provides a secure execution environment that isolates applications from external threats, from each other, and from critical system resources. Applications can be added, placed on-line, and taken off-line with no impact to other applications or the ZSN itself.

4. Service Delivery Applications. Zeugma provides a number of applications that can be run within the Zeugma OAS. These include application (e.g., VOIP, VOD) driven QOS (ADQ), application-driven bandwidth (ADB), active VOIP and video quality of experience (QOE) monitoring, URL filtering, and others.

Deployed at broadband aggregation points within service provider networks, the ZSN can work in conjunction with existing broadband aggregation and subscriber management systems or it can provide those functions itself in greenfield builds or as part of general network upgrades.

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