NETADVANTAGE
DELIVERS WORLD CLASS SONET/SDH AND OPTICAL LAYER NETWORK OPTIMIZATION
SUITE TO TELLABS
In
March, 2003, NetAdvantage delivered its new NetModeler toolset
to Tellabs Operations, Inc. This dynamic network modeling and
optimization software suite will support on-going planning, configuration
and implementation of Tellabs' 5000, 6000, and 7000 series products.
The tool delivered to Tellabs includes a feature-rich set of capabilities
specifically tailored to optimize the SONET/SDH and optical layers
of the network. As a result, Tellabs users will have access to
high performance network design software capable of supporting
VT 1.5 grooming, single and dual-ring interconnection, vendor
equipment modeling and interoperability, as well as wavelength
routing and assignment for banded optical transport systems. According
to NetAdvantage's Dr. Tony Cox, "this world class product
provides Tellabs a powerful new platform in which they can efficiently
design and configure networks for their customers, as well as
advance Tellabs' competitive position in the market place."
Dr. Cox added that NetAdvantage also expects that its NetModeler
toolset will set the de-facto industry standard for network planning
and modeling software, by blending its state of the art software
and easy-to-use interfaces with powerful optimization technology.
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NETADVANTAGE
PROVIDES STRATEGIC CONSULTING SERVICES AND SOFTWARE TOOLS TO MAJOR
SATELLITE NETWORK PROVIDER
In
September, 2002, NetAdvantage delivered strategic consulting services
to a major satellite network service provider. During this project,
NetAdvantage provided expertise to the client by designing and
implementing a network optimization program, including developing
the network optimization framework, analyzing and re-engineering
critical business processes, and building simulation and optimization
software specifications. NetAdvantage also designed and delivered
two proof-of-concept software packages showing the client how
to use available data to optimize infrastructure investment decisions
while taking into account realistic uncertainties in future demands,
delivery times, and potential failures of satellites at launch
or in orbit. This innovative methodology and software design promise
to bring powerful new tools for risk management and decision-making
to the industry. Uncertainty and risk analysis capabilities will
be introduced into NetAdvantage's line of telecommunications network
planning and optimization tools starting in 2003.
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ESTIMATING
THE TRUE COSTS OF OPTICAL NETWORKS
In
July, 2002, NetAdvantage delivered to a national network service
provider an Optical Network Cost Modeling Tool showing how changes
in network architectures, technology platforms, and engineering
rules affect CAPEX, OPEX, NPV, and other metrics over time. The
model provides a new level of realism in understanding cost drivers
and the impacts on national network economics of specific architecture
and engineering choices now being evaluated by this customer.
It is now being used by the client to study the financial consequences
of strategies such as delaying the roll-out of gigabit ethernet
in metropolitan areas or applying different cap-and-grow strategies
for network architecture migration toward DWDM mesh topologies.
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SPRINT
RINGPLANNER TOOL EXTENDED TO ADDRESS NEXT GENERATION CROSS-CONNECT
ADMs
In
June, 2002, NetAdvantage released to Sprint a new version of its
multi-period SONET ring planning tool that incorporates far greater
flexibility in objectives (allowing the user to weight criteria
such as ring interconnect costs, mileage costs, and equipment
costs as desired) and a rich menu of design options for fine-tuning
the engineering constraints placed in network design. The new
tool models next-gen as well as legacy ADMs, allows designs that
are restricted to existing rings and topologies or that allow
new ones to be created, and considers the consequences of early
design decisions on capacity available in subsequent periods.
According to Dr. George Bell, who led the software development
for NetAdvantage, this tool provides a new level of realism and
flexibility in the design of SONET networks that makes it especially
valuable for use with existing network planning processes. George
Fischer of NetAdvantage, who worked closely with Dr. Magesh Srinivasan,
the Sprint Project Manager, to assure that NetAdvantage addressed
all high-priority business and engineering issues, says that "Our
new RingPlanner tool is the first in the industry to allow economic
and engineering rules and priorities to be changed on the fly
while still providing high-quality multi-year network design and
traffic routing plans. NetAdvantage has already extended this
new planning platform to mesh topologies."
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NETADVANTAGE
INTRODUCES BROADBAND CONFIGURATORS
In
March, 2002, NetAdvantage delivered to a Passive Optical Network
(PON) company two configurator software tools for deciding when,
where, and how to deploy Fiber to the Business (FTTB) and Fiber
to the Home (FTTH) using PONs technology. As inputs, these configurators
take shelf, card, and rack equipment costs; fiber, splitter, and
transport costs; pricing plans (e.g., volume discount schedules);
and demand data (e.g., number of buildings by category, distance
from chassis, total number of POTS, T1s, coax drops, etc. per
building in each category, and protection requirements.) As outputs,
they produce cost and equipment requirements summaries and detailed
bill-of-materials reports showing exactly how many of what items,
down to the card level, will be required to meet demands. The
configurators can instantly calculate the detailed equipment requirements
needed to support different demand scenarios and policies on over-provisioning
ratios and other optional engineering requirements.
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DARK
FIBER, SONET AND WIRELESS PLANNING TOOL
In
September, 2001, the NetAdvantage team delivered a dark fiber
network planning and optimization tool to Sprint. The NetAdvantage
Dark Fiber Planner tool optimizes the deployment and purchasing
of facilities such as dark fiber, LEC leases and fixed wireless
connections. The tool even provides flexibility for use of available
network capacity on SONET BLSR rings. Dark Fiber Planner also
optimizes the deployment of DWDM and fixed wireless terminating
equipment in metro area buildings and POPs to carry traffic from
buildings to Sprint's backbone network. As an output, the tool
recommends where to place equipment and how to route traffic to
meet the goal of carrying all traffic with all protection requirements
satisfied (e.g. unprotected, ring and mesh) at minimum cost.
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NETADVANTAGE
ANNOUNCES CONTRACT TO DELIVER RING AND MESH PLANNING TOOLS TO
SPRINT
In
July, 2001, NetAdvantage, Inc and Sprint (NYSE: FON) announced
that Sprint has licensed NetAdvantage's suite of network planning
and modeling tools to design and optimize deployment of SONET
and next-generation optical networks.
NetAdvantage's
industry-leading RingPlanner(TM) and MeshPlanner(TM) tools enable
Sprint to reduce network operations and planning costs, central
office floor space, and equipment power consumption by optimizing
equipment placement, fiber utilization, traffic routing and protection.
This agreement will provide Sprint with intelligent software tools
capable of solving large-scale real-world telecommunications network
design, engineering, and architecture optimization problems.
NetAdvantage's
suite of network planning tools integrates proprietary optimization
technology into effective network planning, economic evaluation,
and engineering optimization software applications. NetAdvantage's
optimization technology enables service providers to rapidly design,
plan and optimize optical networks and to identify cost-effective
strategies for equipment deployment and traffic routing strategies
that meet desired survivability and performance goals. NetAdvantage's
tools also provide state-of-the-art graphical user interfaces
to display DWDM wavelengths, fiber facilities, optical equipment,
and bills-of-materials and to graphically visualize how to reduce
costs of network operation. With NetAdvantage's software tools,
service providers can identify the economic and operational impacts
of architecture choices and better determine where to place facilities
and equipment to minimize cost, floor space and power consumption
as network traffic demand increases.
According
to Dr. Tony Cox, Chief Executive Officer of NetAdvantage, "NetAdvantage
is delighted that Sprint has chosen to deploy our network optimization
software products to support their critical transport planning
functions. We expect that this relationship will allow Sprint
to lower network operations costs, gain critical leverage with
suppliers, and expedite their evaluation and assessment of competing
vendor technologies. Sprint has already extensively evaluated
our tools against others and we are very pleased with their technical
insights and the high caliber of the Sprint planning team, as
well as with their evaluation and selection of the NetAdvantage
technology. This is the type of success that we plan to repeat
and build upon."
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NETADVANTAGE
DELIVERS CARD-LEVEL SONET RING MODELING TOOLSET TO REDBACK NETWORKS
In
June, 2001, NetAdvantage delivered to Redback Networks a SONET
ring planning and optimization software suite (NetPlanner) that
optimizes the configuration of metropolitan SONET rings for the
Redback SmartEdge 100 and 800 systems. This software delivered
by NetAdvantage simultaneously optimizes the design of the SONET
ring network, as well as the card and system level configuration
of the SmartEdge. NetPlanner provides joint optimization of equipment
placement, ring interconnection, traffic routing, grooming down
to the STS-1 level, VT1.5 management, and a host of user options
for specifying design philosophies and goals. It models specific
types of fiber, including Allwave and Truewave and accounts for
optical loss budgets in performing network planning and optimization.
The tool is commercially available from Redback Networks and NetAdvantage.
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NETADVANTAGE
SIGNS TEAMING AGREEMENT WITH ASTRAL POINT
On March
14, 2001, Astral Point Communications, Inc. and NetAdvantage,
Inc. announced that they have signed a Teaming Agreement selecting
NetAdvantage as the preferred provider of optical network planning
tools to be used in designing and implementing optical networks
for Astral Point customers.
NetAdvantage's
optical network planning technology will enable Astral Point customers
to reduce costs, central office floor space, and power requirements
by optimizing equipment configuration and traffic routing. NetAdvantage's
planning tools also allow cost-effective utilization of mesh restoration,
traffic splitting, and deployment of equipment such as optical
switches and DWDM systems.
NetAdvantage's
optical planning tools integrate proprietary optimization techniques
into economic decision-making tools. They allow service providers
to rapidly design and plan optical networks and recommend cost-effective
equipment deployment and traffic routing strategies that meet
desired survivability goals. NetAdvantage's tools also provide
state-of-the-art graphical user interfaces to display WDM channels,
fiber facilities and optical equipment, and graphically visualize
how to reduce costs of network operation. With NetAdvantage's
software tools, service providers can identify the economic and
operational impact of architecture choice, and better determine
where to place facilities and equipment to minimize cost, floor
space and power consumption as network traffic demand increases.
According
to George Fischer, Senior Director of NetAdvantage, "NetAdvantage
is pleased that Astral Point has chosen to utilize our suite of
network optimization technologies for their customers' use in
designing and planning new metropolitan optical networks. We expect
that this relationship will enhance the way service providers
make use of the Astral Point solution to create new revenue streams
and lower operating costs as they turn up high-speed services."
"Implementing
new equipment into an existing network can be a time consuming
and laborious task for service providers. Each day spent planning
is a day of lost revenue generation. Astral Point can now offer
its customers a complete suite of optical network planning tools
that are capable of optimizing network costs by specifying various
network architecture scenarios," said Raj Shanmugaraj, founder,
president and chief executive officer of Astral Point. "Giving
our customers the tools to quickly design and implement the most
efficient networks is a real competitive advantage."
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