Avici Systems this week announced it is forming a new business unit focused on developing products to help carriers define technology-independent service-level agreements (SLAs).

Soapstone Networks will develop controllers to enable carriers to bring predictable, “business-driven” behavior to their networks, regardless of vendor or technology composition. The Soapstone controller provides an abstraction layer that sits between IT-hosted services and network/transport, enabling services to be defined by their desired behavior rather than the underlying network technology, Avici says.

The Soapstone product registers network elements, selects the optimal transport elements, provisions the network, and monitors the actual characteristics for compliance of a service against a desired behavior, Avici says. Its ultimate goal is to facilitate application-driven networking by providing a technology-neutral interface for applications to use in brokering network resources, according to the company.

The Soapstone controller will be based on industry standards such as ITU NGN, SOA, and others, and uses APIs between the network and IT/OSS systems. It maps business-based service needs into a configuration command set that can be applied to any technology or equipment, Avici says.

The first phase of the Soapstone product rollout will include the availability of a Provider Backbone Transport Controller (PBTC). PBT proponents claims the Ethernet-based technology provides greater control of converged service QoS and traffic management than MPLS, but uses low-cost Ethernet switching.

PBT links the Ethernet switch to an OSS and network with an API. But in order for PBT to support automated provisioning and fault management and ultimately control operations costs, Avici claims it requires a control plane.

Soapstone PBTC is a virtual control plane for PBT, but also one that is compatible with other network technologies such as IP, Avici says. Soapstone allows carriers to choose between PBT and MPLS by providing a transport abstraction layer above both PBT and MPLS that enables migration from MPLS networks to alternatives such as PBT.

PBTC will debut at NXTcomm in June, Avici says.

Soapstone is also focused on delivering capabilities for IMS applications by “decoupling” IMS from the network. For this, the Soapstone product supports the ITU NGN Resource-and-Admission Control Function (RACF), making it compatible not only with IMS but also with emerging fixed-mobile convergence applications and session-based wireline applications, including voice and video over IP, Avici says.

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