Celox Networks Introduces New IP Service Creation Switch.

Business Editors

HUDSON, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 8, 2001

Fully Redundant Carrier-Class Platform Includes 80 Gbps of

Actual Throughput, Support for Six Million

Simultaneous Subscribers

Celox Networks today announced the Celox SCx 192(TM), a breakthrough service creation platform that combines rich IP features with unparalleled capacity and processing power enabling network service providers to deliver differentiated service offerings at the massive scale needed to drive significant revenue growth.

Designed for carriers, ILECs, ISPs, ASPs, greenfields and cable operators, the Celox SCx 192 represents an order-of-magnitude leap over existing edge and IP service products, delivering up to 80 Gigabits per second (Gbps) of actual throughput and support for six million simultaneous user connections or flows. The Celox SCx 192 also features the widest support for network interfaces, ranging from DS-3 through OC-192c, and reaches a record density of 1,536 DS-3s. No other product comes close to this level of true carrier scalability and ability to cost-effectively support even the largest service provider networks.

"As the growth of traditional voice and data services slows down and IP services come under increasing commodity pricing pressure, network service providers need solutions to help them deliver value-added services that leverage the tremendous amount of bandwidth in the core of their networks," said Kent Mathy, Celox Networks' Chairman, President, and CEO. "The Celox SCx 192 enables network service providers to create and offer a consistent set of IP-based services over any combination of access connections - DSL, cable, ATM, frame relay, wireless data, fixed wireless - to grow revenues and attract and retain customers."

Software To Drive Service Revenue

A carrier-scale IP service creation switch must not only have the processing power and throughput to provide value-added services to individual subscribers on a massive scale, but it must support the key software features that drive these services. These features are critical as network service providers begin to offer multiple services and service levels over a single access connection. (A typical example would be a cable operator upselling an existing cable modem customer with IP telephony, personal firewall, or other services.)

The Celox SCx 192 supports key software standards such as OSPF, BGP-4, MPLS, ATM, RSVP and DiffServ. This allows the switch to provide classes of service across core networks by functioning as an edge router while ensuring interoperability with terabit routers and dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) equipment.

To help drive new service revenues, the Celox SCx 192 supports sophisticated, high-performance quality-of-service (QoS) parameters that allow network service providers to define up to 16 classes of service. The switch can apply QoS to traffic flows based on the user, the application or a combination of the two. The result is that the network service provider can use Celox Networks' traffic prioritization, traffic shaping, and bandwidth management features to create a range of premium classes of service for incremental revenue.

After prioritizing the traffic into different classes of service, the Celox SCx 192 enables network service providers to deliver on their performance guarantees through service level agreements.

For network wholesalers and cable operators needing an open access solution, the Celox SCx 192 can be divided into 512 secure segments, or separately-administrated "virtual" SCx 192s. For network wholesalers, this enables them to provide a consistent set of IP services to a wide range of retail service providers who may use varying access technologies. For cable operators, the virtual SCx 192s enable them to partition and manage their bandwidth for subscribers to access alternative ISPs without degrading the services the cable operator is offering.

Redefining A Carrier-Class System Architecture

The Celox SCx 192 is a single-shelf, rack-mountable system with a 16-slot mid-plane chassis, comprised of four primary hardware components. The Network Interface Modules (NIM) provide the physical network connection for sending and receiving traffic over the network. The Interface Control Modules (ICM) provide initial traffic analysis and processing and direct the traffic to the Service Processing Engines (SPE), which perform the bulk of the packet processing and IP services. Finally, the Switch Fabric Modules (SFMs) provide the high-speed, non-blocking connections between the ICM and SPE modules.

Unlike competitive products that process specific services on specific processor modules, Celox Networks designed the Celox SCx 192 so that the SPEs operate as a common processing pool. This enables the switch to balance its workload across all the available SPE resources, rather than being restricted to certain ones.

This advanced architecture allows network service providers to add SPE capacity independently of the interface capacity. This is key for network service providers who already have sufficient network connections to their customers, but would like to add more feature processing power to create and offer additional IP services over those connections. As more services are sold to subscribers, the network service provider can add SPEs to increase the available feature processing power for more complex processing at higher data throughput rates, which allows the system to scale in an extremely cost-effective way.

"Since current edge and IP service solutions have limited service processing and subscriber capacity, they are often replaced in as little as nine to 18 months," said Hugh Kelly, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Business Development, Celox Networks. "The Celox SCx 192's minimum configuration is equivalent to our competitions' maximum configuration, meaning the switch can work longer in a network and reduce both equipment and operations expenses."

In order to provide the highest level of reliability, the Celox SCx 192 features a fully distributed architecture with no single point of failure and the option to create full redundancy with transparent failover for every module in the switch. The switch also supports Automatic Protection Switching to ensure network uptime.

BitRipper Network Processors(TM): The First OC-192 Network Processors

The innovative architecture of the Celox SCx 192 is made possible by a combination of general-purpose processors and Celox Networks' patent-pending BitRipper Network Processors, a group of six custom ASICs that perform packet inspection, reassembly, reformatting and scheduling of user flows at wire speeds up to OC-192. The BitRipper Network Processors are the first OC-192 network processors ever developed and are used on both the ICM and SPE modules.

Aside from their raw speed, another advantage of the BitRipper Network Processors is the separation of the data path from the control path. This reduces the number of data copies, simplifies processing, and increases throughput and overall system performance.

The BitRipper Network Processors also are software-upgradable to enable network service providers to keep the Celox SCx 192 current with dynamic new IP services they want to provide on their network.

Simplifying Service Management & Self-Provisioning

The Celox SCx 192 is supported by a robust management architecture that allows for integration with both legacy and emerging OSSs. In addition to support for the necessary fault isolation, configuration management, accounting, performance management, and security management requirements, the Celox Service Creation Management System (SCms) also automates and streamlines sophisticated end user service requirements, including order management, service provisioning, customer care, accounting and other OSS applications.

Through its interfaces to those applications, the Celox SCms(TM) has the ability to support subscriber self-provisioning. Using a web browser, subscribers can access the Celox SCms to add a firewall, change their class of service, or temporarily add bandwidth for an upcoming video teleconference. The system is secured through password protection so subscribers only view and make changes to their own services. This provides easy and quick modification of individual accounts, while at the same time relieving network service provider resources from performing order processing and order management tasks, which can just as easily be accomplished by the subscribers.

Pricing and Availability

List price for the base configuration of the Celox SCx 192 is $250,000. The product will begin customer trials in the second quarter and will be generally available in the summer of 2001. AT&T Business plans to test the Celox SCx 192.

About Celox Networks

Founded in 1999, Celox Networks is building the first carrier-class, carrier-scale IP service creation platform to enable network service providers (NSPs) to drive new service revenues from network-based IP-centric services. The company is headquartered in Hudson, MA, with development centers in St. Louis, MO, and Bangalore, India. For more information about Celox Networks, please call 978.562.4200 or visit our website at www.celoxnetworks.com.

(c)1999-2001 Celox Networks, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Celox Networks(TM), the Celox Networks' logo (with a (TM)), Celox SCx 192(TM), Celox SCms(TM), and BitRipper Network Processors(TM) are trademarks of Celox Networks, Incorporated. Celox Networks may own other trademarks and service marks that are not included here.