In brief: Marconi, Riverstone partner on metro nets

Plus: Digex unwraps new apps services.

Marconi and Riverstone Networks recently announced a partnership to combine their products into metropolitan Ethernet systems for carriers.

The companies will jointly market Riverstone’s metropolitan IP routers with Marconi’s multiservice switch-routers, optical transport gear, broadband access systems and softswitches.

The companies initially will target carriers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, but as demand for packet-voice products increases, the partnership will expand to include carriers around the world, the companies say. Marconi will provide service and support to joint customers.

Marconi and Riverstone recently provided Jersey Telecom, a U.K. telecom provider, with a converged voice, video and data network. Jersey Telecom is rolling out a suite of commercial and residential broadband services based on the Riverstone/Marconi system, such as voice and multimedia, across TV set-top boxes, PCs and PDAs.

Managed hosting provider Digex is unveiling a slew of services that it says are designed to better meet the needs of business customers that are putting critical applications on the Web. The new services are Hosted Siebel, Hosted PeopleSoft, Digex AppSpect and Digex LAN-Extender. The hosted application services include automated monitoring and pre- and post-production services.

Digex AppSpect services test hosted applications for the most common application security vulnerabilities. The service, which costs $5,000 per test, includes consultation with Digex security experts who make recommendations for improving application security.

Digex LAN-Extender lets customers securely hook in to Digex data centers, enabling remote data replication, remote disaster recovery and single sign-on across legacy and hosted applications. Enterprise Hosting services come with flexible service-level agreements, Digex says.