Media and Application Servers

Today’s service providers and businesses have to deal with tremendous amounts of media content of many types, and they need to push them to various users and subscribers simultaneously upon request. They also have to contend with rapidly changing requirements and requests for new and innovative types of services and applications. Today’s triple and quad play services, and the anticipation of IMS-based services, are creating an increased demand for both media and supporting applications — like voice mail, conferencing, network announcements, e-commerce, web portals, and much more.

Incumbent service providers have to balance these new needs with still being able to benefit from their legacy infrastructures. The new crop of next-generation service providers have already deployed IP-based networks and are already looking to capture greater market share leveraging their state-of-the-art technology to introduce enhanced voice and video services.Wireless networks are also on a migration path based upon IPbased WiFi, WiMAX (News - Alert), or 3G standards. Enterprise IT managers also are realizing the benefits of being able to create and add new applications to their voice services platforms. And MSOs are increasingly completing their triple and quad play portfolios by adding voice and/or mobility to their offerings.

Whether they are looking for media servers to simply push out content, or application servers to offer added features and services — with the added benefit of providing a forum for developing new applications — there are a variety of vendors that offer media servers, application servers, or both. Some have already prepared their products in anticipation of wide-scale IMS infrastructure deployment, whereas others have opted to wait and see what happens.

This month’s product round-up features media and application servers, which have become increasingly vital pieces as service providers and enterprises look to complete an IP network puzzle that has many more pieces than its legacy predecessor. While we always strive to provide a complete list, we recognize that we may have inadvertently omitted some, in which case, please feel free to contact us so that we can amend our online roundup.