What DPI can do for you

Improved video services: “If I offer you a service that has a video channel, you pay a base rate for broadband. But when I see video traffic delivered into your home, I’ll allocate a certain amount of bandwidth, and you’ll see it more quickly,” said Kevin Walsh, vice president of marketing for Zeugma, which uses deep session inspection, similar to DPI, in its edge router. “The consumer would pay some fee above basic broadband. But they don’t have to pay for more bandwidth all the time, when they only use it occasionally. It makes sense to consumers, they understand it, they know what they are paying for and what they get in return.”

Optimizing bandwidth on mobile networks: DPI can be used to identify voice calls and protect them during periods of congestion. “Especially in the mobile space, you may have to prioritize traffic to make sure calls go through,” said RobKraft,AdvancedIOSystems' VP of Marketing. “Never mind the whole issue of whether I want to turn down peer to peer – there are legitimate applications because in the mobile space they have much more limited bandwidth.”

Wireless networks in particular are good DPI candidates because the technology can be used to make sure users get the same experience, wherever they go, said Rob Malan, CTO of Arbor Networks, which acquired Ellacoya and incorporated its DPI technology into Arbor’s security solutions. “Wireless users don’t stay in the same place in the network; they are all over the place,” Malan said. “As wireless data networks grow, there will be people getting off airplanes, traveling in cars, moving building to building, and the network operator has to make sure they have that same level of service everywhere.” That means enforcing policies and subscriber management across the network, which a DPI-enabled network can do, he said.

Corporate network protection: Companies such as Bivio Networks have been selling to enterprises, directly and through OEMs, programmable networking devices that enable applications such as monitoring, surveillance and security, Amir said. In addition to providing intrusion detection to ward off things such as denial-of-service attacks, DPI can be used to ensure that employees don’t use corporate networks inappropriately.