As Internet Protocol (IP) traffic volumes continue to surge globally, carriers are moving to optimise their networks for the skyrocketing demand.
In the new distributed network, 'softswitches' will play a critical role in enabling this convergence of mixed media. Softswitches are products that provide the switching, call control and signalling gateway functions necessary for building converged multimedia networks running on top of IP.
Willem Coetsee, sales manager telecomms at Sun Microsystems in South Africa, says Sun will work closely with suppliers in this field to bring softswitch technology to this country and to support it.
"The emerging softswitch market offers tremendous opportunity to vendors in this space. Sun Microsystems, with its open, carrier-class, fault-tolerant systems is taking this opportunity and is tailoring equipment to meet the evolving needs of the telecomms market," says Coetsee.
With market revenues expected to exceed $4.3 billion by 2004, US-based market research and consulting firm, The Yankee Group sees vast potential for server vendors as more companies build out new networks or expand services with the convergence of voice and data traffic.
According to The Yankee Group, seventy-eight percent of the world's leading softswitch vendors have selected Sun Microsystems as the preferred platform for their call control and signalling products.
The analyst group attributes Sun's dramatic climb in the market to the company's carrier-grade Netra family of servers and storage systems, as well as its robust and scalable SPARC architecture and Solaris Operating Environment.
The report, "Softswitches: The Brains Behind the Brawn," analyses the transformation in the telecom environment as providers build out their networks to accommodate the high volumes of data traffic, as well as the vendors that are likely to emerge in this new public network.
To ensure the same reliable service as the public switched telephone network (PSTN), carriers must deploy flexible, reliable, scalable systems to move from several hundred users to thousands of users. Sun's carrier-grade Netra server platform allows carriers to develop, deploy and run mission critical services and is able to withstand the peak demands and high volumes that these new services place on the network.
One of Sun's strong global partners in the service provider and telecommunications market is Lucent Technologies. Commenting on the softswitch market, Mike Decelle, vice president of marketing for Open Network Solutions at Lucent Technologies says:
"Lucent has long seen the softswitch as a breakthrough in helping both traditional and emerging carriers deliver the best of the circuit and IP worlds to their customers.
"As one of the preferred platforms for the Lucent Softswitch, Sun Netra gives us an open, carrier-grade environment that helps simplify deployment issues and enables communications providers to expedite application development."
"Sun's roots are in providing exceptional compute systems to the telecom industry and enterprises," said Neil Knox, vice president and general manager for Sun Network Systems. "We have the technology and expertise that are helping to transform the way that next-generation applications are developed and delivered."
Sun and Lucent will be delivering insights on market trends and opportunities within the information and communications frontier at their 'Driving e-business' seminar in Johannebsurg and Cape Town at the end of August. For more information, visit www.drivinge-business.com.
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Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision -- The Network Is The ComputerTM -- has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW), to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that power the Internet and allow companies worldwide to dot-com their businesses. With $15.7 billion in annual revenues, Sun can be found in more than 170 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com.