Santera Introduces New Softswitch Line

Santera Systems Inc. (www.santera.com) says the softswitch product line it’s unveiling today can scale far larger than any such next generation solution currently on the market.

SanteraOne includes a media gateway, media gateway controller, signaling gateway, element management system and application server.

“We can have a single softswitch support up to 64 media gateways. Or can have up to 32 softswitches in a single switching system. So as your call processing needs increase in the network you can add media gateways as needed and do load balancing across them,” says Kevin Grove, director of product marketing at the two-year-old company.

A single shelf on the media gateway can support 56,000 DS0s, says Grove, adding the nearest competition can only do 36,000.

“We have both a TDM and packet fabric in our product, so we can do 80 redundant OC3 ATM interfaces on a platform. That’s in one shelf. But we can do 3.6 million DS0s in 64 shelves or 21 racks. That’s voice,” says Grove. “We do up to 12.5 gigabits of ATM per shelf. That’s data.”

The solution can handle CLASS 3, 4, and 5 switching; IP, ATM and frame relay; and voice over broadband. In addition to including new protocols such as MEGACO, SIP, MPLS and VoDSL, SanteraOne also supports legacy requirements including GR-303, location number portability, 300 CLASS 5 features and TCAP. Other vendors are providing mostly point solutions that address just a single application, he says.

“We’re more than just a softswitch. We do call processing and the signaling gateway that does SS7 signaling, PRI, any to any kind of signaling,” says Grove. Santera’s application server, meanwhile, enables customers to develop their own features via XML, for example, and allows for the hosting of “off board” application servers, he adds.

The company is currently in betas with two customers, which it declines to name. It expects to make customer announcements and talk about interoperability with other vendors in the first quarter.

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