UPDATED: Masergy expands global Ethernet reach with ADVA's FSP 150

Masergy is enhancing its ability to serve its multisite enterprise customers with Ethernet by deploying ADVA Optical Networking's (XETRA: ADV.DE) FSP 150 platform.

Given the diverse and demanding needs of large business customers, the FSP 150's Etherjack technology, which provides proactive network monitoring, enables Masergy to deliver and adhere to strict Service Level Agreements (SLA).

As a non-facilities-based service provider, Masergy establishes Network to Network Interface (NNI) agreements with local Ethernet providers in the markets where it provides service in about 61 countries. It is using FSP 150 as the Network Interface Device (NID) to deliver all of its services and ensuring the performance of its QoS offerings.

Under its transport service suite, the service provider offers five main services, including Private IP (Layer 3), VPLS (Layer 2), VPWS (Layer 2), and Public IP (Layer 3), in addition to voice and video QoS.

The FSP-150 incorporates what is called a three color marking traffic management scheduler that prioritizes each traffic types: red for priority voice service, yellow for data and green for best effort with a packet scheduler that will shape and interleave traffic to ensure all traffic can be supported.

"We are deploying the ADVA FSP 150 solution as an intelligent demarcation device that allows us to manage as well as offer multiple services," said Terry Traina, VP Engineering at Masergy, in an interview with FierceTelecom. "All of the services we offer from a transport perspective we're able to deliver over the ADVA NID and our QoS offering."

While native Ethernet service is the focus, Masergy is flexible about the last mile facility that the customer uses at its particular site. Similar to the way it handles multiple service provider relationships to deliver services, it can also leverage TDM to deliver Ethernet services over another device.

"Even if native Ethernet is not available, we can still deliver Ethernet across a serial TDM circuit that on the customer end is an Ethernet handoff," said Tony Hurtado, VP, Global Marketing and PR for Masergy. "We can pretty much deliver services anywhere there are facilities to that client location."  

Given the diverse set of services that Masergy is delivering, a key differentiator of the Etherjack technology is that it enables them to be more proactive in resolving network issues before the customer knows there's even an issue.

Having already developed its own QoS mechanisms that leverage dedicated bandwidth connections to the customer site, the FSP-150 provides greater insight and flexibility to deliver a wide set of services.

"ADVA is key to us deploying our service offering where we can deliver multiple transport services over a single medium and implementing a common QoS policy across all services," Traina said. "In addition it has a built in RC-2544 test suite which allows us to do quite a bit of testing to validate that our service meets our SLA requirements."

For more:
- see the release

Related articles:
ABRY Partners purchases Masergy Communications
MASERGY employs Overture's ISG edge product to address virtual service opportunities
ADVA's Ethernet focus drives up Q4 2011 revenue
OIF puts Ethernet over OTN on display at Interoperability 2012 event
BT goes live with wholesale optical spectrum access service