NXTcomm08: Sandvine creating DPI ecosystem

LAS VEGAS--Sandvine has launched a partnership program through which it seeks to integrate its deep packet inspection (DPI) technologies with myriad other network-based applications, allowing carriers to more quickly and easily deploy content and policy control services such as media caching, content filtering and advertising.

According to Tom Donnelly, Sandvine vice president of sales and marketing, the program allows companies to integrate their platforms directly with its DPI solution. Thus when a carrier launches a new product, such as content caching, it doesn’t have to shoehorn the caching server into the network between the customer and the Internet, Donnelly said. Sandvine’s DPI technology will automatically identify the packets that need to pass through a particular platform and redirects them to appropriate box, no matter where it might sit, Donnelly said.

“We can make more intelligent decisions about the redirection of traffic,” said Tom Donnelly, vice president of sales and marketing for Sandvine. “Carriers don’t want to deploy new infrastructure every time they do something new.”

Sandvine has set out four categories for its ecosystem: content caching, content control, advertising optimization and online charging. As part of its announcement this week at NXTComm08, it named two initial partners: media caching company PeerApp and Netsweeper, a content filtering platform provider.

DPI has become a highly controversial topic lately as carriers debate how to handle the increasing load on their data networks. DPI has been used to restrict certain traffic, such as peer-to-peer, over consumer broadband networks, leading to a storm of consumer criticism and the closer involvement of regulators. Donnelly, however, said DPI technologies have many other uses than choking off certain applications. By making the network “application aware” carriers can offer more customized service more efficiently to their customers as the new partnership program demonstrates, Donnelly said.

“We don’t see ourselves as quote ‘a DPI’ unquote company,” Donnelly said.