Deep packet inspection gear supplier Allot Communications Ltd. is taking DPI to a new level with its Service Gateway platform, announced Monday at NXTcomm. President and CEO Rami Hadar said the new solution, which aims to address the needs of Tier 1 service providers, is a carrier-class, multifunctional product with an open architecture and the ability to support up to 25gbps of traffic.
While Allot to date has offered single appliance devices with sub-5gbps ports for DPI, the Service Gateway is based on an AdvancedTCA-compliant chassis with modular, hot-swappable DPI blades. A single platform provides four 10GB Ethernet ports, that manage two 10GB Ethernet lines.
Within the Service Gateway, the application and subscriber information for each traffic flow is identified by a single DPI process that can then dispatch the flow to an array of additional services and actions. These actions may include traffic prioritization and quality of service (QoS) optimization, filtering (including parental control), blocking security threats (including clean line and denial of service attacks) or collecting records for real-time charging or offline usage-based charging.
This ability to scale in terms of capacity and functionality could help Allot appeal to Tier 1 services providers, many of which have yet to deploy DPI solutions in a meaningful way, in part because the DPI space is relatively new, said Hadar.
Although many Tier 1s have not yet deployed DPI in a big way, many such service providers now have RFPs out DPI solutions because they want to be able to prioritize traffic to deliver differentiated services that ensure higher-quality video streaming, enhanced security features and more, said Hadar, adding that will allow service providers to move away from the flat-rate Internet access model. “We are aware of at least half a dozen Tier 1s readying to make decisions on RFP,” he says.
Initial customer deployments for final testing of the Allot Service Gateway are expected to begin this summer. General commercial availability of the gateway is slated for the fourth quarter of 2007 or the first quarter of 2008. Pricing was not disclosed.
Allot www.allot.com
