Unisphere pushes VPNs out to the network edge

Apr 2, 2002 12:00 PM, Jim Barthold

"Our key differentiator is our ability to reside in the service provider's network and perform more than one function," said Karen Livoli, senior manager of product marketing in Unisphere's IP Routing Group. "We are continuing that focus with the VPN Suite.

The new applications suite will support:

• Transparent frame relay by taking existing frame relay customers and migrating them to an IP backbone without changing equipment on the customer side

• Transparent LAN services that take existing virtual LAN services and put them over multiprotocol layer switching, primarily for providers wholesaling bandwidth

• Encrypted VPN, a hardware-based IP module that supports 5000 tunnels at wire speed

• MPLS VPNs, "what the majority of our customers are running right now," said Livoli.

The new suite's "key component" is that it never degrades wire speed performance, Livoli said.

"This means things like voice and video, when they're running over your VPN, have consistent quality," she said.

The Unisphere product suite, she said, aims at "the biggest opportunity in the market right now -- Layer 2 migration. There's a huge installed base of equipment that may be two, three, four years old that needs to be upgraded. By putting our equipment into the network, [service providers] are able to provide the same service, but start migrating to their IP network."