CloudShield Technologies, Inc.   

Problem: Costly Links and Charges, Frequent Upgrades

About 60% of residentially generated Internet traffic is Peer-to-Peer (P2P) traffic. Most of it doesn't generate revenue, yet consumes lion's share of service providers' network resources. In the process, it increases transit costs, disrupts revenue generating traffic such as VoIP, and forces premature network infrastructure build outs.

Costs are increased when service providers are hit with excess transit network charges or higher bandwidth charges by their backbone providers. Service providers also forgo performance related revenue when P2P traffic causes Service Level Agreement (SLA) misses. Uncontrolled P2P traffic forces providers to prematurely build out their network infrastructure which increases capital expenditures.

Solution:

The CloudShield services management solution enables service providers to reduce operating costs, improve customer satisfaction and reduce capital expenditures as described below.

• Reduces operating costs: Gaining policy control over subscriber traffic means providers can regulate traffic to comply with current bandwidth agreements for all. The CloudShield subscriber services manager enables service providers to reduce their monthly fees paid to backbone providers, eliminate excess transit network charges and reduce bulk transport expenses, saving providers' money.
• Improves customer satisfaction: The CloudShield subscriber services manager enables service providers to better understand and control traffic on their networks so as to more reliably meet customer Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Managing subscriber-level traffic will no longer crowd out revenue generating traffic and help maintain customer satisfaction.
• Defers and limits capital expenditures: By shaping traffic at the subscriber-level, bandwidth is made available for new revenue generating services. Rate limiting traffic allows network infrastructure build-out to be deferred, thereby reducing capital expenditures.

This solution is enabled by CloudShield's CS-2000 Carrier Class, Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) platform. Only this highly scalable platform with its multi-threaded architecture can support sophisticated policy driven subscriber-level controls at wire speed.
 

CloudShield's complete top-to-bottom platform includes:

• The CS-2000 carrier-class network appliance and IBM BladeCenter PN41 blade: best-of-breed hardware solutions offering unsurpassed performance and scalability.
• CloudShield PacketWorks Operating System (CPOS): secure real-time network operating system.
• Packetworks Integrated Development Environment (IDE): open, rapid development environment for network and content processing applications.

IBM BladeCenter® PN41 is a highly programmable, high-performance blade capable of helping drive revenue, control costs and protect network infrastructure - key initiatives in today's telecommunications and national government environments. This network and content processor combines the powerful capabilities of BladeCenter with the performance of CloudShield®, an industry-leading network service control and security provider. Together, they create an optimal platform for building and operating next-generation network service control solutions.

Since both media and technology move at such a heightened pace, it's easy for telecom organizations to become marginalized. That's why it's important to deliver innovative products and services—to stay on top of the market and quickly respond to customer demands. The PN41 blade delivers the capability to help drive top-line growth through new services, billing models and revenue streams.

The PN41 performs Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) and analysis of network traffic—a powerful approach that delivers network insight and helps organizations stay competitive in the marketplace. DPI can help network operators:

• Develop new revenue models for voice, video and data networks as well as control traffic on converged 3G or 4G networks with multiple services like VoIP and IPTV.
• Increase the average revenue earned per customer.
• Enable new profit-driven opportunities like customizing advertisements to fit geographic and demographic user preferences.
• Design new pricing structures based around subscriber usage.
• Evolve with the marketplace.

Hardware - Throughput and Interfaces

• 20 Gbps sustained DPI throughput per blade; 280 Gbps per chassis, over 1 terabit/second per rack
• 1 X 10 GbE (XFP), 1 X 1 GbE (SFP) – front side
• 4 X 10 GbE & 4 X 1 GbE – backplane
• 60 Gbps internal non-blocking switching fabric
• Compatible with BladeCenter H & HT chassis

Centralized Management, Provisioning and Reporting

• DPI Blade managed by IBM System Director
• Supports industry standard APIs: SNMP, TELNET, HTTP, HTTPS, Syslog, SQL, and Web Services

Software — Integration and Functionality

• Runs Existing CloudShield and partner applications
• Speeds DPI Development using packetC
• Enables new application classes
• Allows transparent deployment and scaling of enterprise applications as managed services