Alcatel-Lucent and Belgacom, Belgian provider of integrated telecommunications services, are offering enterprises a new tool to enable them to improve operations and identify potential cost savings.
Alcatel-Lucent's 'Application Assurance' solution provides visibility into which applications are using up the most resources on enterprise networks at any given time as well as how these applications are performing; critical information that can be used to enhance business operations.
Enterprises focus on getting maximum efficiency and performance from their virtual private networks (VPNs), which are provided by communications service providers such as Belgacom to complement the capabilities of the enterprises' own dedicated networks. Applications that run too slowly or do not perform with sufficient quality can negatively impact both business operations and customer relationships
To date, the ability to ensure the performance of applications has been limited, and this problem is particularly acute with cloud-based services. Belgacom's deployment of Alcatel-Lucent's Application Assurance solution will help give enterprises the confidence that the applications they rely on – from both their own dedicated network and the cloud – are operating at optimum efficiency. For instance, if the Application Assurance solution shows that network performance is affected negatively by employees accessing non-business-related services during business hours, then access to those applications can be limited or restricted to non-critical times and the performance of the enterprise's VPN will be improved.
Tom Wuyts, director WAN, internet and security, enterprise business unit at Belgacom said: 'With the Alcatel-Lucent Application Assurance solution, our enterprise customers will have clear insight into how much bandwidth various applications are using. This is a key element of our Smart Networking initiative, which is geared toward bringing greater intelligence to our networks for the benefit of our customers. On the whole, enterprises are very concerned about the performance of applications they access from the cloud; this new solution will help eliminate those concerns, and put enterprises in a better position to take advantage of the cost and flexibility benefits that the cloud has to offer. As importantly, our customers can take advantage of the service quickly and cost effectively, because there is no need for on-site equipment.'
Luc Defieuw, CEO Alcatel-Lucent Bell in Belgium, said: 'Enterprises are increasingly interested in cooperating with their service providers to enhance visibility and performance of business-critical applications running over their network. Alcatel-Lucent's Application Assurance solution directly addresses that need; Belgacom's enterprise customers will always know exactly how their services are performing and will be able to make critical adjustments as needed.'
Alcatel-Lucent's Application Assurance solution is offered on top of the Alcatel-Lucent 7750 Service Router (SR) and 7450 Ethernet Service Switch (ESS). The solution is based on the Multiservice Integrated Service Adapter (MS-ISA) – which extends the intelligence of the 7750 SR and 7450 ESS – in combination with the 5670 Reporting and Analysis Manager (RAM), which provides extensive tools and capabilities to analyse and process detailed, application-level statistics per-subscriber.
