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West Ridge Networks Unveils Carrier-Grade Service

Posted on: Monday, 4 October 2004, 06:00 CDT

SQMworks Enables Service Providers to Reduce Costs, Generate New Revenues and Drive Profitability by Being First to Correlate Network Performance To IP Service Quality

West Ridge Networks, the pioneer in carrier-grade service quality management solutions, today announced SQMworks(TM), the first service quality management solution designed to automatically collect, analyze, report and manage the performance and quality of IP services, such as VPNs and VoIP, down to the individual customer level. SQMworks will be demonstrated for the first time at TeleManagement World 2004 in Long Beach, Calif., October 12-14, 2004, in West Ridge Networks' booth (#212).

Service providers are rapidly deploying IP services to their enterprise customers, but face critical management issues as they migrate to dynamic IP core networks running multiple services. Enterprises still demand guaranteed performance backed by service level agreements - requiring a new means to measure service metrics. This need for service-centric, IP-based management solutions is a market that industry analyst RHK estimates will grow from $200 million this year to more than $600 million in 2007.

Optimized for IP, SQMworks is a highly scalable service quality management (SQM) system with patent-pending technology that enables service providers to automatically detect network elements and topology, visualize actual network performance, report on service performance and deliver measurable SLAs to enterprise customers. Using SQMworks, service providers can proactively manage services and infrastructure and drive down operational costs while deploying high-value IP services to enterprise customers.

"Existing management tools were designed for legacy, circuit-based networks and report performance by looking at only the end points, an approach that measures service performance in isolation from the network delivering the service," said Hugh Kelly, president and CEO of West Ridge Networks. "Specifically designed for IP networks, SQMworks provides the only comprehensive view into the entire network to understand the relationship between network infrastructure and services and deliver granular analysis down to the individual customer level."

Patent-Pending Technology: Service Inference(TM) and Topology Replay(TM)

SQMworks uses the network to understand service performance, network topology and routing information in real time and over time. SQMworks' unique, patent-pending Service Inference(TM) technology understands service characteristics from the information that it automatically discovers about the network. Using Topology Replay(TM), service providers can view the evolution of the network topology to correlate events with service metrics, investigate trouble tickets and improve operations.

Distributed Data Collection and Intelligent Analysis of Networks and Services

Due to the size of the networks delivering IP services, both in terms of geographic distance covered and the number of network elements involved, SQMworks features a distributed, pay-as-you-grow architecture with tiered data collection that features passive monitoring, proactive testing and correlation of both methods. SQMworks applications then analyze and report on the collected network information. A comprehensive system, SQMworks includes the following components:

-- Intelligent Network Engines (INEs) - servers that are generally deployed at each core router complex to autodiscover the network topology from protocols such as BGP, OSPF, IS-IS and MPLS, track statistics and collect events using traditional SNMP and CLI device access and flow collections.

-- SQMcentral Server - servers that provide a central aggregation point for information about the network and services collected by the INEs. Typically these are deployed in the NOC and monitor topology changes, host the SQMworks applications, and provide the standards-based XML and CORBA interfaces to feed SQMworks information to other back-office OSS applications.

-- SQMagent(TM) - software-based probes that reside on INEs for service providers to run proactive performance tests.

-- SQM applications - hosted on the SQMcentral server, these applications provide visibility, analysis and control over the real time and historical network information collected by the INEs and stored on the SQMcentral server.

Both the INEs and SQMcentral run on off the shelf Linux or Solaris servers that provide a cost-effective means for service providers to scale data collection, storage and processing as their IP services deployment grows.

SQMperformance(TM): Visualize, Analyze and Report on SLAs

SQMperformance combines network visualization and reporting tools so service providers can analyze both operational performance and customer-facing metrics, including generating reports on SLA metrics on an individual customer basis. Network information can be viewed from a variety of perspectives, including by customer, managed service, network or specific protocol. Additional SQMworks applications to manage infrastructure and services according to business rules, simulate the effect of planned changes on performance and optimize the use of network assets are under development.

The SQMworks applications are Java-based and users access them from standard Web browsers. The software also comes with a managed customer portal to enable service providers to offer customers the ability to access customized reports, topological visualizations and other SQMworks reports, graphs and information.

SQMworks Pricing and Availability

SQMworks and its first application, SQMperformance, are generally available now directly from West Ridge Networks. SQMworks pricing varies depending on network size and configuration, but it is based on the number of customer interfaces under management and starts at $250,000.

About West Ridge Networks

West Ridge Networks is the pioneer in service quality management solutions that enable service providers to improve the operational efficiency and service quality of their networks using patent-pending technology. Founded in 2003 and headquartered in Littleton, Mass., the company is backed by top-tier investors, including Bay Partners and Advent International. For more information, visit www.westridgenetworks.com.

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