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Backoffice & OSS
To IMS or Not to IMS; That’s Cisco's Dilemma
Next-Gen Architecture Supports IMS and Non-IMS Applications
by Jim Barthold
Cisco Systems is playing it safe and politically correct by
enhancing its next generation IP architecture with products
that support both IMS and non-IMS-based applications. This,
the company says, gives service providers the choice of how
quickly they offer fixed/mobile convergence (FMC) services
via an integrated IMS platform.
“The real world has a bunch of applications that can be IMS
and non-IMS and some of them today are not IMS,” said
Suraj Shetty, marketing director-Routing and Service Provider
Technology Group.
Cisco, Shetty said, currently has five IMS customers, including
Sprint, so the announcement “is more of an amplification of
the IMS message, clearly talking about how we continue to
integrate IMS and how we enhance our product line to be IMS-
compliant while supporting the applications that may not be
IMS compliant,” he said.
It’s also “a reminder to the marketplace that IMS is still in its
early days and therefore non-IMS-based service deployments
are still important and driving a lot of the service revenue,”
said Mark Bieberich, director of Communication Network
Infrastructure at The Yankee Group.
Cisco can continue to move forward with an IMS platform that
is “moving away from the white board to actual deployments”
while keeping a handle on customers who are not rushing off
in that direction, Bieberich said.
“It (IMS) is real but it’s going to take many years until we see
IMS as the de facto architecture for next generation services,”
he said.
As part of the IMS package, Cisco is integrating session
border control (SBC) onto its XR 12000 series router,
a “completely homegrown” product addition that “shows our
ongoing progress in executing on the IMS strategy,” Shetty
said.
The Cisco SBC also signals that “session border control
capabilities can be developed in a reasonable time frame
such that the cost of doing so is advantageous as opposed to
purchasing a company,” Said Bieberich.
In addition to supporting both IMS and non-IMS, Cisco
launched an IP over dense wave division multiplexing
(IPoDWDM) solution to enable element control and
management integration between the IP layer and the DWDM
layer managing traffic growth from bandwidth-consumptive
applications like video and IPTV.
While a voice call could consume about 64 to 100 Kbps of
bandwidth, a video stream typically requires 3 or 4 Mbps and
high definition demands 6 to 10 megs of sustained
throughput.
“When you have that kind of massive growth of bandwidth in
the network layer, you want to make sure that the network
gets scaled very efficiently,” Shetty said.
To do that, Cisco developed a one-port 40 Gbps tunable
DWDM packet-over-SONET interface that is compatible with 10
Gbps DWDM systems. When installed with the CRS-1 router,
this “allows you to basically take 40 gigs of data and pack it
into the existing 10 gig infrastructure ... without the service
provider having to incur a single cost,” Shetty said.
That, said Bieberich, is “compelling to a select number of
customers that use platforms on the order of CRS-1, very
high capacity networks” and are already pushing the 10
gigabit envelope. The percentage of Cisco customers in this
situation is “probably very small … but it’s an important
percentage because these are the early buyers of the CRS-1
and that’s an important revenue stream to Cisco,” he
continued.
The 40-gig capability is important as Cisco's keeps pace with
its competition, Bieberich said.
“Otherwise you risk giving up mindshare and potentially
market share to your competitors,” he said. “It’s logical to
conclude that anything that a router vendor can do to
minimize the cost of more optical elements in the network is
a step in the right direction.”
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