Innovative GPU-based transcoding approach lowers costs, new software releases offer advanced call recording capabilities and supports ONAP-based NFV deployments

July 2, 2018 WESTFORD, Mass. – Ribbon Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: RBBN), a global leader in secure and intelligent cloud communications, today announced the general availability of its Session Border Controller (SBC) Release 7.0. The new release provides disruptive, market-leading support of graphics processing units (GPUs) for media transcoding in cloud and virtualized environments. Ribbon’s Session Border Controller Software Edition's (SBC SWe), which is accelerated by NVIDIA Tesla V100 Tensor Core GPUs, offers up to 9 times higher capacity and up to 5 times greater power efficiency for media transcoding compared to CPU-only servers.

The company also announced the general availability of software Release 11.0 for Centralized Policy and Routing (PSX), Insight Element Management System (EMS) and GSX Media Gateway (GSX). These releases collectively deliver numerous benefits to communications service providers (CSPs) and enterprises, including the ability to deploy new services in virtual and cloud environments, enhance call-handling capabilities, increase operational efficiencies and improve security.

“Our latest software releases demonstrate our continued commitment to cloud, security and innovation,” said Mykola Konrad, Vice President of Product Management for Ribbon Communications. “We are extremely excited about bringing disruptive technologies to the marketplace such as our SBC SWe’s use of GPUs for media transcoding in the cloud, which will allow our customers to experience superior real-time communications quality and reliability.”

Konrad added, “Our goal is to continuously lead the market in offering our service provider and enterprise customers increased deployment flexibility and enhanced security for session and policy management of their cloud-based real-time communications offerings.”

“GPU-based transcoding is a forward-thinking approach that offers service providers immediate CAPEX and OPEX benefits and Ribbon is staking out a leadership position in this area,” said Chris DePuy, Founder and Technology Analyst, 650 Group. “Offering service providers significant additional transcoding capacity, while lowering power, space and operational costs significantly differentiates Ribbon’s GPU-based approach from traditional CPU-based transcoding offerings in the marketplace.”

Solutions Benefits:

• Industry-leading SBC media transcoding scaling capabilities in virtual and cloud deployments using NVIDIA GPUs to increase performance and decrease cost per transcoded session.
• Expanded SBC and PSX support for SIP Recording (SIPRec) allows enterprises and call centers to conduct up to four (4) simultaneous recordings of sessions via secure, encrypted technology.
• Expanded capabilities for Virtual Network Functions (VNF) instantiation with the ability to instantiate Ribbon’s PSX VNF aligned with the Open Network Automation Platform (ONAP) framework.
• Enhancements for operational efficiencies that allow CSPs to reduce configuration complexity and improve ease of use.
• Enhanced security across all products to deliver more restrictive access, reduction in possible network exposure and additional encryption.

Key Takeaways:

• Ribbon’s Session Border Controller Release 7.0 now supports GPUs enabling greater performance and scale for media transcoding, at cost-effective price points, in cloud and virtualized environments.
• Ribbon’s Centralized Policy and Routing (PSX) can be instantiated as a Virtual Network Function (VNF) aligned with the ONAP architecture.
• Enterprises now have increased capacity for up to four (4) concurrent SIP Recording (SIPRec) sessions, enabling recorded data to be used for multiple purposes simultaneously such as real-time analytics for call center agents, recordings for corporate compliance and back-up, and lawful intercept.
• The Insight Element Management System (EMS) has an improved user interface for ease of use and offers improved provisioning and management processes.