In presenting this Award, Frost & Sullivan recognizes the market leading features of Redback Networks’ SmartEdge® platform, which demonstrate the company’s commitment to innovation and product differentiation and underscore its technical expertise.

“The company has shown tremendous success with the SmartEdge product that unifies three separate functions, namely edge routing, Ethernet aggregation, and subscriber management into a single, multi-functional platform,” noted Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Prayerna Raina. “Redback has accomplished this without compromising on the performance, availability, and security capabilities necessary in a carrier grade platform.”

The four models in the product family consist of the flagship SmartEdge 1200, SmartEdge 800/400, and SmartEdge100. Together, these Multiservice edge routers provide the foundation for any kind of deployment, whether large of small.

The SmartEdge 1200 platform, introduced this spring, provides three major innovations. It doubles carrier capacity for new video upgrades, extends triple-play services to broadband mobile networks and integrates up to six network applications into a single router. The SmartEdge 1200 also introduces three new network applications, including deep-packet inspection for peer-to-peer traffic management, advanced session border control capabilities and network security for carriers and their customers.

“With the addition of the SmartEdge 1200, Redback has raised the bar for delivery of triple-play and business services. Further, by adding support for mobile users as well by the inclusion of security and session border controller functionality in SmartEdge 1200, Redback has further differentiated itself from the competition,” said Raina.

The SmartEdge platform’s innovative packet mesh architecture and a dedicated Packet Processor (PPAs) on every line card ensures that there is no single point of failure. The PPAs are fully programmable and new services can be introduced through the insertion of the right software code. As a result, PPAs offer investment protection because new functionalities can be added without requiring major hardware change.

The Frost & Sullivan Award for Product Differentiation Innovation is presented each year to the company that has best demonstrated the ability to develop and/or advance products with more innovative capabilities than competing vendors and products. This Award recognizes the company’s successful adoption of new or existing technology that has become a part of its well-designed product family. Such innovation is expected to significantly contribute to the industry in terms of product performance and degree/rate of technical change.

Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices in the industry.-Redback Networks