Acme Packet Enhances Session Border Controllers for Large Enterprises and Contact Centers.

Acme Packet Net-Net OS Delivers New Security, Session Control, Quality Assurance and Regulatory Compliance Capabilities

BURLINGTON, Mass. -- Acme Packet[R] (NASDAQ: APKT), the leader in session border control solutions, today announced enhancements to its Net-Net[R] session border controllers (SBCs) used by large enterprises and contact centers. These features deliver new security, session control, quality assurance and regulatory compliance capabilities designed to further control and optimize the delivery of IP interactive communications-voice, video, and multimedia collaboration-across enterprise and contact center IP network borders.

According to a number of recent research reports, a majority of enterprises and contact centers are in some stage of VoIP deployment. Many of these are early stage trial deployments where enterprises and contact centers are attempting to work through the many security, interoperability, quality and compliance issues associated with the transition to IP communications. To resolve these issues, enterprises and contact centers are looking to SBCs to protect against denial of service (DoS) and signaling overload security threats, alleviate protocol, codec and encryption interoperability issues, assure session quality and enable regulatory compliance.

"Acme Packet is leveraging our leadership in the service provider market-both our expertise and feature-rich, readily interoperable SBCs-to enable large enterprises and contact centers to deliver secure, high quality interactive communications across their IP network borders," said Seamus Hourihan, vice president of marketing and product management at Acme Packet. "With many enterprises and contact centers focused on IP interactive communications deployment issues, these latest enhancements further extend the control of our industry-leading products."

The latest set of enhancements to the Net-Net family deliver four critical capabilities:

Intrusion Detection & Prevention (IDP) reporting

Acme Packet's Net-Net SBCs leverages its real-time Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) capabilities to analyze and identify traffic anomalies in order to protect against malicious and non-malicious attacks resulting from signaling message floods, registration avalanches, malformed messages and malware attachments. Using its Dynamic Trust Management (DTM) and behavioral learning capabilities the Net-Net SBCs define which traffic is allowed and which is denied based on pre-defined business and network policies. For example, the system can differentiate between a flood attack and a registration restart avalanche, denying the flood attack and regulating the registration restarts.

To complement this robust detection and prevention engine, Acme Packet has designed an IDP reporting system that provides a comprehensive detection, collection and reporting architecture that enhances the enterprise's ability to identify, analyze and mitigate potential threats. The IDP reporting system allows the administrator to define policies that specify the types and levels of alarms that trigger notification events, with other alarms falling below this threshold simply being logged. For example, in order to protect against denial of service attacks the administrator can define a threshold for the rate of SIP INVITE messages from a single source, with the system alerting the administrator when exceeded.

Anti-virus, worm and SPIT protection

With its ability to carry attachments for valuable uses, SIP-based interactive communications can also be susceptible to proliferating viruses and worms. For example, a voice call sent with a rich media caller ID vCard attachment with the SIP header can act as a Trojan horse that propagates destructive malware throughout a network, adversely affecting all applications. Acme Packet provides a robust set of tools that combine to protect users, devices and infrastructure against viruses and worms. To deliver this level of protection the Net-Net SBCs combines its DPI capabilities with SIP Header Manipulation Rules (HMR). These policy-driven rules define what is allowed and not allowed, enabling enterprises and contact centers to protect against many types of viruses and worms. For example a rule can be created that removes all header attachments, alleviating a major form of virus and worm propagation.

Spam for Internet Telephony (SPIT) is a potential problem once many different VoIP networks are interconnected that could result in a SPAM-like plague of unsolicited calls and voicemails. To identify and prevent SPIT, Acme Packet SBCs combine behavioral learning with policy-driven session admission control rules. For example, the Net-Net SBC can identify and block automated calling platforms by analyzing anomalies in the call origination rate from a single source.

SIP session control - SIP REFER & LDAP interface support

The ability to optimally control SIP sessions is a critical component of any successful deployment in order to reduce costs and maintain quality. Active support for the SIP REFER method enables contact centers to transfer customer calls within a virtual contact center without involving external IP phone or media gateways, enhancing call reliability and reducing latency.

To further simplify the roll-out of IP communications, Acme Packet has added an LDAP interface that enables enterprises to leverage existing employee databases for user authentication and authorization. This interface eliminates the need to replicate or synchronize data across multiple data stores or perform duplicate data entry.

Call replication for call recording

Many enterprise and contact center deployments require the ability to dynamically select calls for recording. This may be for regulatory compliance purposes or based on business procedures that require selective or 100% call recording for quality assurance. The ability of Acme Packet's SBCs to perform call replication reduces the number of devices that enterprises and contact centers have to manage, eliminating costs and decreasing complexity. To further enhance this capability, Acme Packet offers a set of APIs and interfaces that enable integration with external provisioning and post-call processing systems.

About Acme Packet

Acme Packet, the leader in session border control solutions, enables the delivery of trusted, first class interactive communications--voice, video and multimedia sessions--across IP network borders. Our Net-Net family of session border controllers supports multiple applications in service provider, large enterprise and contact center networks--from VoIP trunking to hosted enterprise and residential services to fixed-mobile convergence. They satisfy critical security, service assurance and regulatory requirements in wireline, cable and wireless networks; and support multiple protocols--SIP, H.323, MGCP/NCS and H.248--and multiple border points--interconnect, access and data center. Our products have been selected by over 420 service providers in 81 countries, including 23 of the top 25, and 76 of the top 100 service providers in the world. For more information, contact us at +1 781.328.4400, or visit www.acmepacket.com

Acme Packet Safe Harbor Statement

Statements contained herein that are not historical fact may be forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. Such forward-looking statements may relate, among other things, to our position in the session border control market, our expected financial and operating results, our ability to build and grow Acme Packet, the benefits of our product, and our ability to achieve our goals, plans and objectives. Such forward-looking statements do not constitute guarantees of future performance and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These include, but are not limited to: difficulties in growing our customer base, difficulties leveraging market opportunities, difficulties providing solutions that meet the needs of customers, poor product sales, long sales cycles, difficulty developing new products, difficulty in relationships with vendors and partners, higher risk in international operations, difficulty managing rapid growth, and increased competition. Additional factors that could cause actual results to differ materially form those projected or suggested in any forward-looking statements are contained in our recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including those factors discussed under the caption "Risk Factors" in such filings.