Italtel and Cisco boost collaboration on emerging technologies  

Italtel and Cisco have strengthened their cooperation in Software Defined Networking (SDN) solutions for the Enterprise market. The close synergy of the two companies is focused on defining solutions to improve the quality of enterprises’ IT applications and optimize network resources.

Cisco has launched an Enterprise SDN Controller (Cisco® Application Policy Infrastructure Controller - Enterprise Module or APIC-EM), positioning it as a cornerstone for the evolution of IP networks in the business context.

At the same time, Italtel has commenced development of an application for APIC-EM that makes the most of network resources by providing the best possible Quality of Experience (QoE) for IP video and voice services.

The solution, known as Dynamic Admission Control, guarantees the best QoE for multi-technology Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C) applications in a multi-site enterprise context. The bandwidth management is performed dynamically, activating Quality of Service (QoS) policies which are shaped according to the services that should be preserved. One of the biggest use cases for the solution is network congestion.

“The adoption of Video UC&C applications is now crucial for the business development of enterprises which are widely spread on geographies,” said Camillo Ascione, Head of System Integration Strategy & Marketing at Italtel. “Being able to apply suitable policies to shape network resources’ consumption, not only according to their availability but also to users’ needs, is today a pressing requirement for enterprises. An SDN approach provides IT managers a feasible way to manage dynamically high QoE services, particularly in a multivendor environment, via a controller based infrastructure.”

The Dynamic Admission Control solution was presented by Italtel, hosted within the Cisco SDN pavilion as ‘Ecosystem Partner’, at this year’s Cisco Live!™ US event in San Diego.

Phil Casini, Director Product Management APIC-EM at Cisco, added: “The selection of appropriate partners to take advantage of the opportunities created by SDN and network programmability is among Cisco’s main priorities. Italtel’s expertise and long track record in the development and integration of large scale telecommunications infrastructure enables a dynamic solution like DAC to emerge as an application on APIC-EM which can significantly increase the return on investment that many companies seek for their IP voice and video assets.”