Bridgewater Teams With DPI Vendors

CHICAGO -- Bridgewater Systems, a leading developer of subscriber-centric policy management software for IP-based services, today announced that it has successfully completed interoperability testing of its Dynamic Broadband Manager policy management solution with Deep Packet Inspection Partners. End-to-end interoperability testing included deep packet inspection (DPI), traffic management and policy enforcement products from industry leaders Allot Communications, Ellacoya Networks and Sandvine Incorporated.

DSL, cable, 3G wireless and other service providers are now assured of seamless interoperability among these industry-leading providers of best-of-breed solutions engineered to dynamically control and provision broadband IP services in real-time as subscribers access them.

These solutions integrate the two key components of policy-based resource management, defined by the DSL Forum as policy decision, enforcement and server function. In the CableLabs PacketCable™ MultiMedia (PCMM) specification, Bridgewater’s Dynamic Broadband Manager product provides the policy decision functionality. The Allot NetEnforcer, Ellacoya IP Service Control System, and Sandvine PTS 8210 Policy Traffic Switch all employ DPI technologies to provide policy enforcement.

Policy-based broadband resource management empowers service providers to:

“The integrated Bridgewater/Allot solution has enjoyed very positive acceptance and traction in both the carrier and cable markets,” said Greg Hutterer, carrier sales director for Allot Communications. “Forward-thinking providers all recognize that they need both technologies, and offering a tightly integrated joint solution delivers valuable benefits to everyone involved.”

“Broadband providers are uniformly moving beyond basic Internet access services to delivering differentiated service plans to their entire subscriber bases,” said Ben Legault, vice president of marketing at Ellacoya Networks. “We are pleased to bring our customers a pre-integrated and pre-tested Ellacoya/Bridgewater solution that enables them to quickly scale their service offerings to millions of subscribers.”

"Broadband service providers are growing their networks and looking to offer their subscribers high-value IP services," said Tom Donnelly, executive vice president, marketing and sales, Sandvine Incorporated. "Sandvine and Bridgewater's integrated, carrier-class solution allows broadband service providers to seamlessly offer differentiated services and ensure subscriber quality of experience.”

Bridgewater’s Dynamic Broadband Manager is a comprehensive policy system that gives broadband IP service providers the ability to manage network policies on a per-subscriber, per-session basis. Based on these policies and application-specific QoS requirements, it dynamically executes policy management through direct interfaces with multi-vendor network elements, including DPI, Broadband Remote Access Servers (BRAS), Packet Shapers, Cable Modem Termination Systems (CMTS), Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) switches, Residential Gateways, Edge Routers, Packet Data Service Nodes (PDSNs) and other access network elements.

The Deep Packet Inspection products examine IP packets at a far greater depth than standard IP routers and switches. This enables them to provide granular intelligence about per-subscriber application usage. This added intelligence is a key component to the joint Bridgewater Dynamic Broadband Manager and DPI solution. For example, if a subscriber has exceeded their monthly bandwidth usage quota, a policy might automatically redirect the subscriber to a service provider portal offering an on-demand or permanent upgrade to a higher bandwidth tier.

“The combination of our Dynamic Broadband Manager solution software and “best of breed” deep packet inspection technology provides a powerful end-to-end policy management solution,” said Tyler Nelson, vice-president of business development and marketing for Bridgewater Systems. “Together with our partners, we are working with leading service providers around the world to enable them to add highly scalable bandwidth-on-demand and metered usage features to solution portfolios. We look forward to offering our customers pre-integrated, easily deployable joint solutions that meet this market need.”

Bridgewater Systems Corp.