Nortel announced a carrier-grade application server aimed at providers of broadband SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) voice and other IP-based services. The Nortel Adaptive Application Engine (AAE) runs on Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), and provides Web 2.0 services such as social networking along with IP voice and multimedia, says Nortel.

Nortel's AAE server is billed as a backward-compatible “evolution” of Nortel's Application Server 5200 and Communication Server (CS) 2000 SSL. The server will be available as a standalone SIP application server or in conjunction with a CS 2000 SSL IP softswitch application server.

Like the CS 2000 SSL, the AAE server is said to support IMS (IP multimedia subsystem), a technology that integrates traditional telecom networks with packet-switched networking based on Internet protocol (IP). Until now, IMS has largely been a landline phenomenon, but according to a recent report from ABI Research, mobile operators will net $300 billion in “extra” revenue over the next five years by deploying IMS.

The AAE server can run on up to 400 Red Hat-certified Linux servers, says Nortel, scaling from a few thousand subscribers to up to a million. By adding Web 2.0 features such as social networking, blogs, and wikis to the usual IMS mix, says Nortel, the AAE supports next-generation network (NGN) 2.0 standards for wireless broadband, wireline, and cable access networks that support SIP. Nortel offers an “Open Programmability Environment” for developing applications for the AAE that provides for “consistent service set across multiple broadband IP networks,” says the company.

Applications made possible by the Adaptive Application Engine are said to include:

• Unified Communications — integrated email, voicemail, instant messaging (IM), text, graphics, video files, and web collaboration, such as single-clicking into a video conference with everyone on an email address list
• Federated Instant Messaging — Supports chatting across multiple technologies and platforms
• IP Communications over the web — For example, IP-enabling social networking web pages with “click-to-call-me” links to VoIP calls
• VoIP over IPTV integration — Making VoIP calls or performing IM chat via IP-enabled set-top boxes (STBs) and TVs
• Fixed Mobile Convergence (FMC) services — For example, transforming mobile phones into office extensions with the same voice calling features as desk phones, or taking a mobile call from a desktop phone

Standards and protocols supported by the AAE are said to include:

• IETF
• PacketCable
• TISPAN
• 3GPP/3GPP2
• OMA
• SIP 3GPP and SIP IETF]
• H.323
• SIP-Telephony (SIP-T)
• RTP/SRTP
• Common Channel Signaling System 7 (CCS7)
• Primary Rate ISDN (PRI)
• Call Associated Signaling (CAS)
• Parlay X

Stated John McCready, GM, Carrier Multimedia Networks, Nortel, “Without increasing network complexity, Nortel's Adaptive Application Engine software makes it simple for any service provider to grow to support large increases in demand for NGN 2.0 services.”

Availability

The standalone Adaptive Application Engine software is set to ship in late 2008, says Nortel, and the CS 2000 integrated version is due in early 2009. More information may be available here.

 
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