Veraz ties up products with new ‘MGN’ architecture

Veraz Networks today announced a new over-arching architecture – which it dubs Multimedia Generation Network – that ties together its media, control and service delivery products.

It’s not hard to imagine that the amalgamation of existing acronyms – such as Next Generation Network (NGN) and IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) – was at least partially behind the coining of the new MGN concept. And Veraz’s MGN does indeed take into account many of the precepts of NGN and IMS networks, including the separation of the application/media and network/control layer, opening up the network to third-party services and more.

But the idea behind Veraz is to move the service provider in new directions while fully taking into account legacy network infrastructure, as well as multiple access networks and clients trying to access that network, said Dawn Hogh, Veraz’ vice president of marketing.

“It’s a new way of thinking about networks and where they are going,” Hogh said. “It’s a multimedia platform that in a lot of ways looks like the IMS framework, but it also takes into account that every service provider is going to have various points where they have legacy networks, legacy services and legacy infrastructure.”

Veraz’s MGN architecture consists of three layers: Media, Control and Service Delivery, tied together by a unifying management layer. The platform is designed to help carriers more quickly deliver new services, which makes it a good solution for new greenfield deployments (such as emerging WiMax networks); but it also is focused strongly on lowering Opex costs, making it suitable for incumbent carriers, Hogh said.

At the media layer of MGN is the Veraz I-Gate family of media gateways and the Network-adaptive Border Controller, providing media security, QoS, transcoding and bandwidth optimization. The control layer includes the Veraz ControlSwitch and Network-adaptive Border Controller, providing secure connectivity for any mix of TDM and IP services. Finally, the service delivery layer includes Veraz’s Open Service Broker and Policy Engine, supporting both Veraz-developed and third-party applications.

For one final element, Veraz offers a soft client, verazVirtu, that that can be customized to a service provider’s needs.