FRAMINGHAM (07/24/2000) - Renegades from INS, the integration services company acquired by Lucent Technologies Inc. for $3.7 billion last year, have formed a new services company focused on providing consultation and other assistance to service providers.
Former INS executives formed Callisma in 1999, and many of the company's top executives are ex-INSers. And like INS, Callisma has the significant backing of Cisco. The data networking giant funded Callisma's second round of financing, to the tune of $25 million.
Yet Callisma maintains it has no Cisco Systems Inc. bias. It will work with gear from any vendor, including Cisco rivals like Lucent. And despite the Cisco financial backing, Callisma claims it differentiates itself from Lucent/INS by being vendor neutral.
Callisma's model is founded on the premise that service providers need expert advice to assist them in moving from the 'old world' of separate voice and data networks into the 'new world' of converged packet networking. As they converge their network and services, "new world" providers are under increasing pressure to address user requirements for resiliency, capacity, quality of service (QoS) and scalability, Callisma says.
Callisma offers six service packages to help service providers (SP) move into this "new world." They include:
- SP Optical, which provides advice on optical architecture, migration, migration planning, network design and implementation services of long haul and metro networks using dense wave division multiplexing, SONET, SDH, Multi-protocol Label Switching and IP technologies.
- SP-IP, which provides consultation on IP service differentiation, including design, engineering and deployment of Open Shortest Path First, ATM, virtual LAN, gigabit Ethernet, quality of service and other technologies.
- SP Packet Voice, which is targeted at service providers with converged networks and includes design and engineering services to encode voice in ATM and IP networks and migrate voice onto packet data networks.
- SP Application Dial-Tone, which includes capacity planning and modeling access links, deployment of policy based services, and consultation on deployment of OC-n, T-carrier, DSL, ATM, frame relay, fixed wireless, Layer 4 to 7 switching, IP QoS, service-level agreements and VPNs.
- SP Secure, which provides assessment planning, design and implementation, security posture analysis, network control and monitoring services, and other services.
- SP Control, which helps service providers streamline service provisioning, customer service and reporting. Under this package, Callisma offers infrastructure management systems, including integration of network infrastructure management with back-office applications for provisioning and billing. Callisma includes Qwest Communications International Inc., CTC Communications Inc., PhatPipe Inc. and NaviSite Inc. among its service provider customers.