F5 Networks announced the newest member of its growing portfolio of solutions for fixed and mobile service providers. F5 Big-IP policy enforcement manager combines the strength of F5’s intelligent traffic steering functionality with a context-aware policy enforcement solution. Providing deep visibility and analytics into subscriber behavior, applications, and the network itself, the solution empowers service providers to optimize network performance, introduce new revenue-generating services, and better control costs. The foundation of F5’s approach is its intelligent services framework, which offers service providers a unified solution for optimizing service delivery and security, and monetizing services.
“Service providers are dealing with enormous challenges, among them, a relentless growth in mobile applications and data traffic, falling average revenue per user (ARPU), increasingly sophisticated security threats, and skyrocketing infrastructure costs,” said Manny Rivelo, EVP, Service Provider and Security Solutions at F5. “Those costs, along with network complexity, continue to rise for service providers because, until now, they have been forced to deploy core services via point solutions. With Big-IP policy enforcement manager, they can deliver multiple services from a unified platform—without sacrificing performance or scalability.”
With this, service providers now have the ability to classify traffic and enforce policy based on applications and subscriber behavior. BIG-IP PEM also provides granular reports on subscriber and application flows, and it integrates with online charging subsystems, giving operators real-time credit control.
“F5’s new solution addresses a fast growing market opportunity and important set of capabilities that CSPs urgently require,” said Deb Osswald, VP of CSP Operations at IDC Research. “Together, policy enforcement, traffic steering, and bandwidth control can form a powerful triad of functionality, enabling CSPs to differentiate their offerings from those provided by over-the-top (OTT) competitors and create new customer value using these network-centric features.”