Application Session Controllers and Why You Need Them

As service providers look to upgrade their infrastructure and build new networks, they have many decisions to make. One of these has to do with the revenue producing applications which currently exist on their network. Do they all need to be rewritten to work with the new network?

In many cases they do but if one company has its way this will no longer be the case. AppTrigger (www.apptrigger.com) is looking to bring old applications into the new world of next-generation networks while simultaneously allowing many of the next-gen services to be available to subscribers on legacy networks.

The company even rolled out something called the Application Session Controller Advantage Program in order to provide a construct for evaluating current application business models as service providers examine the risks and rewards of advanced network migration strategies.

Of course this begs the question: what is an Application Session Controller or ASC (News - Alert)? To answer this question I travelled to Richardson, Texas where the company is based to learn more.

While there I spoke with Tamye Oshman, Director of Marketing; Wally Beck, Senior Director of Marketing and Patrick Fitzgerald (News - Alert), Senior Vice President Sales and Marketing. In my meeting on a scorching Texas day I got to learn about how the company evolved from a media gateway company into what they are today.

Moreover, I learned about how the company has partnered with Unisys (News - Alert) and now Microsoft and their focus on North America, EMEA, APAC and Latin America.

But I promised to tell you about the ASC – it is a stateful call machine, a pre-IMS network element which sits between the application layer and the core network to provide and manage connectivity as the network continues to evolve. The ASC combines media, signaling, call control, and a family of APIs for multi-network, converged application deployments. By isolating application servers from the network via a programmable network abstraction engine, application-specific call control functions can be supplied independently of each network. For example, a VPN running on an IN network could be inserted into an IMS network without having to rewrite the application. The ASC recognizes that everything can’t be implemented in a strict, “pure” 3GPP IMS architecture because service providers have a legacy network infrastructure and they can’t dispose of that overnight. Existing applications have to be introduced “whole” to the IMS (and other) networks, and that’s exactly what the ASC can do.

AppTrigger worked with Unisys to develop the Unisys Application Session Controller, an open and modular network layer environment for the launch and delivery of services over IP, circuit switched, IMS and hybrid networks. It supports communication and value-add services from Unisys and third parties, and is of course IMS-ready.

I am told that the ASC platform supports all the APIs (a bold statement but check with the company for details) and some media such as record, playback and SMS.

So should service providers work with a company like AppTrigger? It depends really. In a world which is getting more and more complicated for carriers, do you need to keep your applications more organized and maximize the revenue of each of them by allowing users on all networks to use them? Of course, the decision is up to you but it seems logical that going forward, ASCs will become common network elements in many service provider networks. Once this happens, we should hopefully see more revenue potential for carriers and more opportunities to use disparate services regardless of the network they are on. IT

» Internet Telephony Magazine Table of Contents