[Infonetics]: Business Analysis of the 5 Leading SDP Vendors

 
A recent survey by Shira Levine, research director for service enablement and subscriber intelligence. IHS "profiles and analyzes the top 5 SDP software vendors as identified by service providers: Ericsson, HP, Huawei, OpenCloud and Oracle:

• Ericsson, Huawei and Oracle have all built strong portfolios, both organically and via acquisition, around the SDP opportunity, and that is reflected in their leadership positions in this year’s scorecard.  However, as the market shifts toward emerging opportunities such as API platforms and alternative delivery models, these established players may get a run for their money from smaller suppliers with a more targeted focus, 
   
• Ericsson’s longstanding presence in the wireless industry in general—and SDP market specifically—helps it land a leadership position
   
• Huawei ramped up in the SDP space quickly, gaining market share by selling into developing regions
   
• Oracle enjoys strong financials, a solid customer base, and a reputation for reliability and support which have helped the company maintain a leadership standing in SDP
   
• Despite a solid roster of customers, HP is struggling in the SDP market as it addresses financial issues and revamps its product suite
   
• Smaller player OpenCloud continues to grow by positioning itself as a less expensive and more innovative option to the larger SDP suppliers

See "IHS Names Ericsson, Huawei and Oracle Leaders in Service DeliveryPlatform Scorecard" - here.

Allot Offers NFV-Based TDF and Security Functions Over HP's OpenNFV

The Journey to NFV

Source: HP (here)

Allot Communications announced its participation in the "HP OpenNFV Partner Program ..  As part of the program, Allot will be offering its virtual Traffic Detection Function (vTDF) [see "Allot Enhances DPI Gateway with Standard TDF" - here] and security services on the HP OpenNFV platform. The integration demonstrates service enablement and delivery for virtual security services that are deployed over the HP OpenNFV cloud environment platform. Following the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) evolving standards, Allot’s vTDF together with Allot’s Element Manager (EM) enables dynamic creation and management of pre-integrated security services such as Allot’s DDoS protection and content-filtering.

[Related post: "Allot and Procera Push NFV-based DPI" - here]

..Allot’s integration with HP OpenNFV components such as HP NFV Director and HP Helion enables onboarding of Allot’s virtual solutions in the HP ecosystem environment. This transition from proprietary equipment installed in a specific topology location to Virtual Network Functions – that can be distributed throughout the network and uniformly managed – enables operators to:

• Simplify and automate service deployment, provisioning and configuration
• Add elasticity to the network for more fluid and efficient allocation of resources
• Leverage distributed cloud infrastructure to implement complex use cases with ease
• Reduce time-to-market for consumer and business services"

See "Allot Communications Offers Robust Security Services on HP OpenNFV Cloud Platform" - here.

HP Acquires ConteXtream for [Estimated] Tens of Millions $

A post by Saar Gillai [pictured], SVP and General Manager, Communications Solutions Business, HP announces that "HP has signed a definitive agreement to acquire ConteXtream, a provider of OpenDaylight-based, carrier-grade SDN fabrics for NFV, and a current HP OpenNFV partner.

Headquartered in Mountain View, CA, ConteXtream offers solutions that allow service providers to create a more flexible and programmable network through an SDN/NFV model. ConteXtream’s open SDN controller platform complements HP’s NFV expertise and telecommunications and IT experience.

After the transaction closes, ConteXtream will become part of HP’s Communications Solutions Business. ConteXtream’s current CEO, Chairman, and co-founder Nachman Shelef will continue to lead the ConteXtream business within HP and will report to me".
  
ConteXtream was founded and is based in Israel. The local press estimates the acquisition price in the Tens of Millions of USD. Comcast and Verizon are among the investors, along a number of VCs. 

Related posts:

• Orange Teams w/ConteXtream to Introduce NFV-Based Subscriber-Aware Services - here
• ConteXtream Adds OpenDaylight-based, Carrier-Grade SDN Fabric for NFV - here 
• Largest SDN Network Deployed by US Tier1 MNO w/ConteXtream (T-Mobile?) - here
• Telenor Manages OTT Video Traffic With: ALU, Opera/SkyFire, ConteXtream and Velocix  - here
• ConteXtream Secured $14M - Investors Include Comcast and Verizon - here

See "HP to acquire ConteXtream to accelerate NFV adoption" - here.

Artesyn Announced High-density Video Acceleration PCI Cards

 

SharpStreamer™ PCIE-7207

Artesyn Embedded Technologies announced the "SharpStreamer™ add-on acceleration card that enables content owners, broadcasters and service provider networks to speed the deployment of high density video transcoding and multiscreen delivery.

..Artesyn is targeting the highest H.264/AVC and H.265/HEVC transcoding density in the smallest footprint. An Artesyn SharpStreamer card is capable of up to 48 streams of 1080p H.264 transcodes, or 4 streams of 1080p H.265/HEVC transcodes. It uses four Intel® Core™ i7-4650U Processors at 1.7 GHz with Intel® HD graphics 5000 Graphics supported by 8 GB memory per processor subsystem in a three-quarter length PCI Express card footprint.

..As with other add-on acceleration cards in the Artesyn portfolio, SharpStreamer is designed for compatibility with servers from Dell and HP.

The SharpStreamer is equipped with a software development kit comprised of the Intel® Media SDK with Intel® HD Graphics' hardware acceleration, monitoring and processor subsystem operating system and management tools for easy integration with server host processing environments"

See "New Artesyn Embedded Technologies Add-on Acceleration Card Enables High Density Video Processing in Standard Servers and Cloud Networks" - here.

Survey: Operators Satisfaction from OSS/BSS Vendors

Jason Marcheck [pictured], Research Director, Current Analysis, published a summary of a "OSS/BSS purchase drivers and vendor satisfaction from large operators around the globe representing approximately half of the global telecom CapEx spend".

The main conclusion is - "The companies that topped the list in questions related to vendor satisfaction seem to be better known as large SI players than as OSS/BSS specialists"

Jason describes his thoughts on the grades and concludes - "I hear a lot of OSS/BSS vendors beam with pride that that they are “product companies,” with the clear implication being that operators value the product more than the SI that comes in and pulls it all together. That is a good story. However, our results say that delivery matters most" 

See "OSS/BSS Vendor Satisfaction – Are “Product Companies” Missing the Boat on Delivery?" - here.

HP's PCC Uses VoltDB In-memory Database

VoltDB announced that "VoltDB 4.0, a high-speed operational database, has been integrated into HP Subscriber, Network and Application Policy (HP SNAP) and HP enhanced Internet Usage Manager (eIUM), next-generation Telco Mediation, Policy and Charging solutions now available from HP.

VoltDB’s in-memory database will power the HP SNAP and eIUM solutions and uniquely address the real-time requirements. VoltDB was purpose-built for high-velocity applications and is ideally suited for high volume transaction-based applications like policy and charging control that require scalability and performance characteristics that are beyond the reach of traditional databases. The newest HP Mediation, Policy and Charging solution embedded with VoltDB will be made generally available to current and new customers in Q2 of 2014".

See "VoltDB’s High-Speed Operational Database Powering HP Telco Mediation, Policy and Charging Solution" - here.

[MarketsandMarkets] Network Analytics Market to Reach $1.7B by 2018

 

A new research by MarketsandMarkets finds that the "The network analytics market is estimated to grow from $487.9 million in 2013 to $1672.5 million in 2018, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 27.9% from 2013 to 2018. In the current scenario, telecommunication vertical continues to be the largest contributor for network analytics solutions. In terms of regions, North America is expected to be the biggest market in terms of revenue contribution, while the APAC region is expected to experience increased market traction, in due course.

 

Solution providers such as IBM, HP, Sandvine, Empirix [see "Empirix Enhances Analytics" - here], Procera Networks, Accenture, Danaher Corporation [Tektoronix, Arbor Networks], and many others are expected to provide innovative solutions by continual encapsulation of multiple use cases and at competitive prices in order to fulfill the need of providing complete network analytics solution. Network operators, cloud service providers, and Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) sector will remain the major consumers of network analytics solutions"

 

See "Network Analytics Market worth $1672.5 Million by 2018" - here.

[More] PCRF Vendors Respond to Bell Canada Observations

I got more responses from vendors regarding the recent post I had with quotes from an interview with Cassio Sampaio, Bell Canada about policy management (see "Bell Canada: 'Network Policy is one of those things that are easier said than done'" - here; see previous responses from Torres Networks, FTS, Openet and Ericsson - here).

• Arash Razzaghi, Director, CMS ACI-BSS Domain, Americas Region, HP

As the traditional boundaries between Network and IT dissolve further in a world where the network is the application and the application is the network, the types of complexities like the ones Bell Canada is experiencing in the area of Policy Management become more prevalent. Traditional IT application management processes and governance are key to managing such complex environments. The trick seems to be in Products and Solutions that are based on cross disciplined approach: finding the right balance between Network Engineering grade solutions, combined with IT Service Management discipline .

This is the secret ingredient for maximizing revenue and optimizing operations in a merged Network Engineering and IT environment which is today’s reality for our Telecom clients globally. Given our heritage, HP CMS solutions are conceived, designed, developed, and deployed with this fundamental principal in mind.

• Taco Schoute, CEO, BroadForward

Recent surveys of Informa and Heavy Reading indeed identify integration as the main obstacle for deploying Policy Control. The key culprits here are limited interoperability between systems and the lack of flexibility to adapt to changes quickly. What make this issue worse is that carriers have to deal with multiple vendors to enable even the simplest of use cases. This raises questions of ownership and the associated cost vs. benefit. Most vendors rather concentrate on investing in core product functionality than on external interface customizations.

To have a fighting chance to reduce time-to-market for services in the competitive world of LTE, the industry needs to be way more agile. What’s needed is the ability to quickly integrate systems as well as adapt connections to changing requirements on the spot. No-one will dispute this, however the key question that remains is how to achieve multi-vendor interworking in a fast, repeatable and cost-effective manner.

Research: Crowd Source as a Base for SDN Application Awareness

A paper by Zafar Qazi, Stony Brook University; Jeongkeun Lee, HP Labs; Tao Jin, Qualcomm Research; Gowtham Bellala, HP Labs; Manfred Arndt, HP Networking; Guevara Noubir [pictured],  Northeastern University present application awareness into Software-Defined Networking (SDN),

See "Application-Awareness in SDN" - here.

ABSTRACT (see poster below)

We present a framework, Atlas, which incorporates application awareness into Software-Defined Networking (SDN), which is currently capable of L2/3/4-based policy enforcement but agnostic to higher layers. Atlas enables fine-grained, accurate and scalable application classification in SDN. It employs a machine learning (ML) based traffic classification technique, a crowd-sourcing approach to obtain ground truth data and leverages SDN’s data reporting mechanism and centralized control. We prototype Atlas on HP Labs wireless networks and observe 94% accuracy on average, for top 40 Android applications.

HP Launches Intelligent Wi-Fi Solution - Integrates Offload, Analytics and Policy Management

 

HP announced a ".. new solution designed to help mobile network operators (MNOs) improve overall service quality and customer experience by leveraging WiFi technologies .. HP is providing a wide set of modules that can be used independently or together to enable WiFi services such as WiFi Offload .. HP’s Intelligent WiFi solutions are available worldwide with pricing based on solution size and architecture".  

HP Intelligent WiFi Offload solutions rely on many HP sub-domains and define a wide framework
divided into five layers:
 

• Access point control provides a complete range of networking products for offloading, including a large portfolio of hotspots scaling
   
• Gateway and switching link WiFi traffic with the data network, tunneling data to ensure security, and providing protection against attacks and identity theft
   
• Authentication and routing methods identify the user who wants to connect on WiFi and includes HSS core network elements and the deep packet inspection (DPI) function to collect user information for further business analysis
   
• Data logical layer stores subscriber data and applies analytics and business intelligence [here]
   
• Policies and rules dictate hotspot network selection, policy control rule function (PCRF - here), real time charging (RTC) rules, and where business analytics reside.

 

  
See "HP Helps Mobile Operators Enhance Services through Intelligent WiFi Technologies" - here.

HP Big Data Solution Helps CSPs with Monetization and Congestion Management

HP announced ".. new solutions that help Communications Service Providers (CSPs)—or telcos—manage, understand and act on massive amounts of information (Big Data) to deliver services to subscribers and improve their satisfaction levels .. by leveraging analytics to gain real-time insight into subscriber usage patterns, preferences and interests, CSPs can capitalize on business opportunities and partner more effectively with these new providers"

  

"HP Telco Big Data and Analytics provide insight into real-time network conditions, so CSPs can enhance network utilization and address traffic congestion situations .. HP Telco Big Data and Analytics are available now worldwide".

The following offerings are included in the new portfolio: HP Smart Profile Server, HP Actionable Experience Management and HP Ad Experience Personalization.

See "New HP Solutions Help Telcos Leverage Big Data to Deliver New Subscriber Services" - here.

RADCOM and HP Offer Policy-based, Cell Congestion Optimization Solution

 
RADCOM continues to expand its partnerships with policy management vendors with its RAN congestion probes. A month after announcing a joint solution with Amdocs (here), the service assurance provider announced a similar partnership with HP.

"RADCOM’s Omni-Q Service Assurance platform and HP Subscriber, Network and Application Policy (HP SNAP), in conjunction with Policy Enforcement and Video Optimization platforms (see below), monitor cell and Radio Access Network (RAN) congestion ..  available for demonstration in HP’s Solution Center, RADCOM’s probe-based Omni‑Q provides real-time QoE monitoring and cell congestion detection information to HP SNAP. HP SNAP orchestrates congestion resolution by managing Video Optimization and Policy Enforcement elements, using standard 3GPP interfaces, thus, reducing the bandwidth consumption for applications being used by subscribers in the congested cells".

HP SNAP is integrated with a number of policy enforcement ("HP SNAP <-> Sandvine/Cisco/Procera")- here) and video optimization  ("Mobixell Explains its Joint Solution with HP" - here) vendors.  

See "RADCOM Reveals Cell Congestion & RAN-Aware Video Optimization Solution" - here.

NI Deployments [183]: Yota [Russia] Uses HP Analytics

   

HP announced that Yota ".. has boosted business efficiency with HP Vertica [see "NI Announcements: HP Adds Vertica Analytics Platform" - here] .. Yota’s growth rate, and the transfer to 4G LTE, meant that the company needed a unified data warehouse to enable the processing and analysis of “big data” in real time. HP Vertica enables Yota to monetize its data faster. Currently, Yota’s data volume is 3TB, and every 24 hours another 20GB is added. Parallel upload ensures that data is uploaded up to 100 times faster than before, while the speed of report creation and random access is, on average, 10 times faster compared with the previous data warehouse .. Call data records (CDRs), which used to be uploaded once a day in a process taking several hours, are now uploaded every 5 minutes"

Igor Torgov (pictired), General Manager, Yota, said: “Average data traffic per Yota customer exceeds 10GB per month .. HP Vertica’s massively parallel, column-oriented analytic database enables Yota to steadily increase the size of our data warehouse while maintaining maximum performance”.

See "HP Boosts Business Efficiency for Russia’s Yota" - here.

CEM Deployments[182]: Telefonica to Use HP in the Americas and Europe

HP announced that ".. Telefónica is using HP Customer Experience Assurance (CEA)—a comprehensive network-analysis and customer-experience monitoring solution developed by HP and specialized software developer Zhilabs [here] —to improve the total customer experience, thereby increasing loyalty, reducing “churn” (customer defection) and lowering the costs associated with customer care". 

 

"Telefónica will deploy HP CEA progressively in all its properties across the Americas and Europe".

Related post - "Update: Sandvine/ALU Agreement Signed; $2.5M Orders Received" - here (note the "DPI" connectivity in the chart below).

See "HP Helps Communications Service Provider Telefónica Improve Service for Millions of Mobile Users" - here.

[Infonetics]: Operators' Survey Shows that Huawei, Ericsson, HP, IBM, and Oracle are Top SDP Supplies

A new survey of operators’ service delivery platform deployment strategies by Shira Levine (pictured), directing analyst for next gen OSS and policy at Infonetics Research, finds that:

"In an open-ended question asking operators who they consider to be the top three SDP vendors, operators most often named Huawei, Ericsson, HP, IBM, and Oracle (Oracle held the top spot in Infonetics’ 2011 SDP survey - here). .. Operators ranked Oracle highest for SDP technology, and ranked IBM and Accenture highest for their business modeling capabilities, likely reflecting their cross-industry experience with process management".

See also "[Infonetics]: SDP Market to Grow from $3.2B in 2011 to $5.8B in 2016" - here and "[Current Analysis] SDP Market Portfolio Assessment: Ericsson Leads, Oracle Missing" - here.

"API exposure was the name of the game in this year's survey, with operators naming it as a top application and business driver behind their SDP investments".

See "Operators name Huawei, Ericsson top SDP suppliers" - here.

[Heavy Reading] - More on the PCRF/DPI Market

    

Ray Le Maistre (pictured) published some more details from  the recent Heavy Reading report on the PCRF/DPI market (see "[Heavy Ready]: 2011 Policy Management & DPI Market Reached $1B; TEMs Gain Higher Share" - here).

"In the policy server market, we believe that the major telecom equipment vendors saw faster growth, as a whole, than specialist vendors. ... Much of the momentum for these major vendors has come from their position as suppliers of core network equipment such as GGSNs, which has pulled through a lot of new policy business," notes the report's author, Heavy Reading Chief Analyst Graham Finnie"
 
"Those same large vendors, plus the likes of Cisco [here], Hewlett-Packard [here] , Juniper Networks, Tellabs [here] and ZTE now account for more than half of the policy server and deep packet inspection (DPI) sector covered by the report, a market that was worth more than $1 billion in 2011 and which is due to grow to about $2.7 billion by 2016 .. most specialists are also seeing robust growth"

See "Policy Specialists Squeezed by Vendor Giants" - here.

[Current Analysis] HP and NSN Lead the CEM Market

    

Iris Heinonen, head of CEM marketing, Nokia Siemens Networks reports the the company blog that ".. In the Current Analysis’ recent “Customer Experience Management survey: Operator strategies and Purchase Horizon” report, operators ranked Nokia Siemens Networks together with Hewlett Packard in the first place". 

   

See also "Customer Experience Management: Operator Strategies and Purchase Horizons" - here.

   

"The analysis shows that CEM is strongly identified with network operations. Furthermore, operators still see CEM a means to help subscribers resolve or avoid service performance issues. As such, the survey conductors encourage CEM solution providers to promote the adaption of a CEM solution with other major operator agendas, such as OSS optimization".
 

"Taken as a whole, CEM vendors are being challenged to better educate operators about how effectively implemented CEM solutions can mitigate some of these conflicts”.
  

 
See "Operators rank Nokia Siemens Networks #1 in Customer Experience Management" - here.

[Update 53: HP SNAP <-> Sandvine/Cisco/Procera] PCRF - DPI Compatibility Matrix

 
HP updated me that "..we work with Allot, Cisco, Sandvine .. We also have an installation with Procera on the Gy side .. Other vendors we integrate with for enforcement are Mobixell (see "Mobixell Explains its Joint Solution with HP" - here) and Flash".


The compatibility matrix was updated to reflect these updates.

Mobixell Explains its Joint Solution with HP

   

Mobixell Networks plans  ".. to demo Policy-driven Mobile Data Optimization solutions and Value-based Charging solutions ..designed around the Mobixell Seamless Access Mobile Internet Gateway (MIG) and the Policy and Charging Rules Function (PCRF) of the HP Subscriber, Network and Application Policy (SNAP - here) solutions .. Together with the PCRF of the HP SNAP solutions, techniques used to optimize data streams are applied or not applied by Mobixell Seamless Access according to pre-defined rules such as whether the subscriber is pre or post-paid, roaming or in the home network, etc. This approach can dramatically save on optimization resources which are often employed under circumstances when they are not actually needed".

I asked Noam Green (pictured), Mobixell's VP Marketing, why would operators use optimization based on subscribers' profile, instead of just using it whenever they can in order to relive congestion and reduce operation costs:

Noam: "Reducing operator’s operation costs (and specifically reducing overall data volume) was indeed the initial compelling reason for deploying optimization solutions. Over the past year and a half we have seen a shift in operator’s view of why and when to activate content optimization, from mere volume saving towards Quality of Experience and network congestion management. This is one of the reasons Mobixell has introduced a new way of approaching mobile data optimization. That’s Mobixell EVO™, an Evolved Optimization approach for mobile networks. This new approach focuses only on congestion rather than just arbitrarily reducing data volume. Network congestion, is one of the major effects on user’s Quality of Experience which is becoming a very important factor for using optimization. 

User profiling is another level operators are already deploying, which enables them to enable different levels of services (Class of Service (CoS)), or according to their billing cycle (e.g: closer to the end of their quota), or even location (roaming, vs. local). Some of our customers are deploying different levels of optimization according to pre and post-paid customers, or enabling DBRA (Dynamic bitrate adaptation) to their premium customers or only on premium content.

Web acceleration and Video Optimization are expanding from mere network savings towards quality experience enhancers. Combining these two with policy engines (such as standard PCRF) enables maximum flexibility and best Quality of Experience for operator’s customers".

See "New Mobile Solution to Let Operators Customize Data Optimization Strategy for Each Individual Subscriber" - here.

PCRF Announcements: HP Integrates Policy and Charging

HP, like Openet and Amdocs (see discussion - here), sees the advantages of offering a single vendor integrated policy (PCRF) and charging servers.
 

The vendor announced that that "The HP Subscriber, Network and Application Policy (SNAP) management solution now integrates real-time charging (billing) so CSPs can apply business rules that allow personalized services and offers to customers .. With the integrated, real-time HP SNAP platform, CSPs can develop insightful policy and charging rules that enable personalized, context-aware offerings for customers. Such offerings can include tiered pricing plans, content packages, customized service bundles, and real-time up-sell offers".

See "HP Helps Telecoms Tap LTE Networks to Deliver Personalized Mobile Experience" - here.