SAN JOSE, Calif., Dec. 16, 1999 - Cisco Systems, Inc., the worldwide leader in networking for the Internet, and NARUS, Inc., the leading provider of Internet business infrastructure solutions, today announced a strategic relationship for a broad spectrum of collaborative efforts in application usage analysis, network service monitoring and network management for service providers.
Through the Cisco and NARUS relationship, service provider marketing and engineering personnel will for the first time be able to rapidly define new network service offerings, provide increased service assurance for existing offerings, and aggregate the necessary data for granular usage-based billing. The combined solution leverages a distributed architecture to correlate data from users, network service definitions, network topology and real-time flows giving service providers the service visibility they need to remain competitive in the fast-paced IP services marketplace.
The NARUS relationship adds a real-time usage dimension to Cisco's growing mediation strategy, complimenting Cisco's Netflow, RADIUS, Call Detail Record (CDR) and voice billing solutions. With this relationship, the NARUS Billing Mediation System will be integrated into Cisco's Internet Operations Support System (OSS) reference architecture, and the two companies will engage in engineering, marketing and sales efforts to deliver integrated mediation solutions.
"Cisco service provider customers are looking for the tools to provide business-based analysis, segment analysis and usage profiling to further the creation of granular, packet-based services," said David Jones, general manager of Cisco's Network and Services Management Business Unit. "This relationship with NARUS helps us to define a complete solution."
"We're extremely excited to be working closely with Cisco," said Mark Stone, president and COO of NARUS. "Cisco has a complete vision of what service providers need to be successful, and we're delighted to play a role in helping to realize that vision."
This relationship also highlights Cisco's increased participation in the Internet Protocol Detail Record (IPDR) standards process initially established by NARUS. IPDR has gained critical acceptance as a means of providing consistent data format for next-generation billing systems.
The Cisco/NARUS approach will be a standards-based integration with Cisco's RADIUS, IP address management, directory and eventing technologies. On a parallel front, NARUS and Cisco are working together to test and certify the NARUS STA technology in a Cisco 12000 Gigabit Switch Router environment.
"Cisco and NARUS make a powerful pair. We are working closely with NARUS on this and other initiatives, and are confident that this will propel our cable Internet services to a new level," said Tom Cullen, vice president, Internet Services at MediaOne.
This announcement also marks another milestone in the Cisco multi-phase plan to deliver a cooperative infrastructure for enterprise and service provider customers to share granular user- and usage-based billing information, as the e-business trend toward network service outsourcing flourishes.
"Our service provider customers are intent on implementing business infrastructure solutions that will enable them to better serve their customers and to realize the full value of the network investments," said Yngvar Tronstad, technology partner for Internet Innovations Centers at KPMG Peat Marwick LLP. "By providing fine-grained service and customer usage information in real-time, Cisco and NARUS enable us to take our customers' OSS/BSS applications to a new level."
About Narus
NARUS, the leading provider of Internet business infrastructure (IBI) solutions, gives IP service providers the flexibility to implement and manage new services and business models profitably, and at will. NARUS' solutions are based on the company's Semantic Traffic Analysis (STA) technology, which captures comprehensive customer usage data directly from carrier-grade networks and transforms it into actionable information. The patent-pending STA technology, which is the only technology that provides complete visibility for all Internet applications, is the foundation for applications that range from decision support to IP billing mediation. NARUS is a founding member of the Internet Protocol Detail Record (IPDR) initiative, along with AT&T, TeleStrategies, and many others. NARUS is privately held and based in Redwood City, CA, The company's web address is http://www.narus.com.
Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ:CSCO) is theworldwide leader in networking for the Internet.Cisco, Cisco Systems, Cisco IOS and the Cisco Systems logo are registered trademarks of Cisco Systems, Inc. in the U.S. and certain other countries.
