Continuous Computing brings DPI to wireless

As deep packet inspection (DPI) comes to the wireless industry, computing platform maker Continuous Computing is bringing a customized portfolio of products and new professional services to market as well.

Wireless networks are seeing a boom in bandwidth demand as consumers buy more smartphones and consume more data, said Mike Coward, chief technology officer for Continuous Computing.

“We see the big growth area for DPI will be in wireless,” Coward said. “Everywhere else in the network, you can throw more bandwidth at the problem. You can lay more fiber and convert from 1 Gb/s to 10 Gig, but you can’t make more spectrum. The upgrades from 3G to [long-term evolution] give you a small improvement in how well you use the spectrum, but it’s nothing compared to the demands being put on the spectrum. Wireless networks will need to have DPI to start to prioritize traffic, offer tiered services and offer service level agreements.”

Continuous Computing is bringing two solution suites for DPI and wireless to market along with what it calls its Solutions and Services business that will enable network equipment providers to more quickly take advantage of wireless market opportunities, Coward said.

“We have competence in wireless and DPI,” he said. “The DPI vendors don’t have a wireless background. And on the wireless side, they don’t have much DPI expertise. Companies on both sides are using us as a bridge to bring these two together.”

Continuous Computing brings more than 20 years of software expertise to this new challenge and is designing platforms for 3G and LTE networks that enable DPI to be deployed closer to the air interface, Coward said, instead of at the point in the network where data traffic is moved onto the Internet or private networks. That will enable network equipment providers and their wireless carrier customers to make the most efficient use of the wireless spectrum and provide security, traffic management, traffic shaping, mobile advertising and more, Coward said.

“We have been making an argument that you want to push [DPI] toward the base station,” Coward said. “We will be doing a demo at Mobile World Congress of traffic-shaping at the cell-by-cell level — that is what we think is going to be the trend.”

The Systems and Solutions approach provides integration of applications, management and middleware with the computing platform to speed time to market for network equipment providers, Coward said. “It’s a much more cost-effective approach to speeding time to market,” he said.