CloudShield Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of advanced services management and infrastructure security solutions, today announced a new release of CPOS, a packet processing operating system which reduces the cost and environmental impact of implementing high-traffic converged IP networks.

This new version of CPOS enables service providers and federal organizations to run multiple stand-alone applications simultaneously on a CloudShield platform or blade, saving capital and operating costs, space, power and resources. Additional savings are achieved when these organizations share applications across different departments or with other organizations. The latest version of CPOS also features a graphical ‘Virtual Patch Panel’ configuration environment, enabling the installation or reconfiguration of virtual appliances without service interruptions.

“Traditionally, network services management and security problems have been treated one box or blade at a time. This drives up operating and capital costs and increases organizations’ carbon footprints. In addition, it makes scaling in line with customer demand more difficult and intensifies the burden of managing multiple boxes each with their unique management interfaces,” said Matt Jones, CEO of CloudShield. “The latest version of CPOS addresses all these issues, helping organizations to meet both their economic and environmental goals.”

For example, a service provider that wants to manage and secure traffic on its network traditionally has had to deploy four different types of appliances to focus on:

• Net operations – ensure high quality of service (QoS) across all subscribers
• Net engineering – protect its network from distributed denial of service attacks
• Marketing – understand customer usage patterns and envision new services
• Security – ensure the privacy of its voice over IP phone conversations

To guarantee reliable service, service providers deploy these appliances in pairs each sized with surplus processing capacity. Each would likely have a different management interface. With CloudShield, all of these functions can be delivered as discrete applications running on top of CPOS on a single CloudShield platform or blade. This dramatically reduces the capital investment and the operating expenses related to power, cooling and management. Also, the total amount of processing capacity can be reduced because surplus capacity can be shared across these four applications, thereby further reducing the carbon footprint.

For the first time large service providers and national governments can realize the cost savings of sharing applications across departments or even across different organizations. CPOS’ open interfaces (APIs) and open development environment have enabled dozens of organizations including CloudShield and its ISV Partners, System Integrators and customers to build applications that now can run simultaneously on individual processor blades in either CloudShield’s platform or its partner’s chassis solutions. Never before have network applications from multiple sources been able to run simultaneously on a single platform.

The new Virtual Patch Panel enables service providers to graphically add, reconfigure or re-sequence applications in real-time without requiring any network downtime. Previously, it wasn’t possible to completely repurpose a network device without taking it off-line or without dropping any packets.

CPOS has been tested and proven secure in production environments for organizations with the world’s most stringent security requirements. The architecture’s strict separation of the data and control planes means that nefarious network traffic can’t take control of the CloudShield platform. CPOS enforces the separation between the packet processing functions (such as traffic measurement, security and control) and the management functions (such as policy management, provisioning and reporting). For ease of implementation, CPOS supports standard APIs for easy integration into service providers’ OSS and BSS systems.

CPOS is available immediately for service providers and national governments that need to reduce space and power consumption, lower costs and streamline network management. For more information, please visit: www.cloudshield.com.