SCIENCE

Procera Networks has announced that it has signed a technology alliance agreement with F5 Networks, the global leader in Application Delivery Networking (ADN). Combining F5's BIG-IP application delivery platform with Procera's PacketLogic enables significant capital investment savings, as fewer servers are required to perform processing of heavy functions such as video optimization and caching.

"We're pleased to welcome Procera into our Technology Alliance Program," said Mike Lee, Director, Service Provider Partners at F5 Networks. "Procera's technology enhances our ability to direct traffic with precision, which is highly valuable for mobile operator networks. The service provider market is a strategic focus area for us. Deploying Procera's PacketLogic with the BIG-IP platform improves traffic classification and provides real time network traffic visibility on a per user basis, enabling service providers to implement advanced billing and policy control."

Deploying the companies' products together enables real time traffic management on a per user, per flow, or per application basis with dynamic redirect and load sharing of specific traffic types -- like video -- at high traffic rates. Procera's PacketLogic performs the network traffic categorization, while F5's BIG-IP application delivery platform steers the traffic to the appropriate destination. This offloads video optimization, caching, and other services, alleviating third-party solutions from the burden of processing irrelevant traffic, which results in significant capital investment savings for service providers.

"Individually, Procera and F5 deliver leading DPI and intelligent traffic steering products, respectively," said Jon Lindén, VP of Global Marketing at Procera. "This combination provides great synergies and enhanced capabilities for service providers that do not compromise on functionality. The business case is compelling, as we further enable third-party solution vendors to spend their processor cycles on delivering the functionality they are designed for."

F5's and Procera's products are field proven with a long history of managing high traffic volumes with carrier-grade performance and reliability. The companies have developed a joint reference architecture that is available now and is being demonstrated at Mobile World Congress 2011 in F5's booth in Hall 1 (#1H21). Procera is exhibiting in Hall 2 (#2A86).