Juniper distributes policy enforcement for ipTV, video, VoIP

Juniper Networks this week unveiled hardware designed to distribute and scale policy enforcement throughout a service provider network.

The company’s C-series Session and Resource Control (SRC) products are designed to provide subscriber management and policy control capabilities to help enable service providers to ensure an optimal user experience for multiplay -- IPTV, video on demand, VoIP -- and mobile services. The software applications that run on the C-series platforms are derived from Juniper’s SDX-300 Service Deployment System which Juniper says is deployed in over 100 networks managing millions of subscribers.

The SRC software applications include the SRC Policy Engine, which monitors and allocates network resources; the Diameter Gateway, for control of IP Multimedia Subsystem applications; and the SOAP Gateway, for integration with Juniper and third-party developed applications. Juniper’s existing Steel-Belted RADIUS servers, which provide subscriber authentication, authorization and accounting, will also be included in the SRC portfolio.

The C-series controllers include the C2000 and C4000. They host the SRC applications and support 200,000 and 500,000 concurrent sessions, respectively.

The controllers gather and compile data from multiple sources–the network, subscribers and applications–and uses this information to control and manage network resources in real time, Juniper says.

Third-party application developers can write programs for the controllers through Juniper’s Open IP Service Creation Program (OSCP). Juniper this week announced two new members of the OSCP: Session border controller vendor Acme Packet, and BitBand Technologies, which develops admission control software for video-on-demand services.

Juniper also unveiled a new Multiservices Physical Interface Card (MS-PIC) for its M- and T-series routers. MS-PIC provides hardware acceleration for packet processing intensive services and enforces policy defined by SRC modules.

The MS-PIC hosts services such as stateful firewall, Network Address Translation, IPSec, anomaly detection, packet accounting and tunnel services, among others. It is designed to enable service providers to deliver security services and collect billing statistics, while eliminating configuration and management complexity and lowering operational costs.

MS-PIC is currently available and pricing starts at $35,000. The C-series and SRC portfolio will be available in mid-April. A C-series controller bundled with SRC software starts at $50,000.