Frost & Sullivan Lauds the Competitive Functionality of MRV Communications' Service Provisioning & Management System and True Differentiation Related to Scalability in the Carrier Ethernet Demarcation Market

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Oct. 12, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Based on its recent analysis of the Carrier Ethernet demarcation market, Frost & Sullivan recognizes MRV Communications Optical Communications Systems (MRV OCS) with the 2011 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Product Differentiation Excellence. MRV OCS, through its Pro-Vision service management system found in the OptiSwitch® family of Carrier Ethernet demarcation products, has brought to market a field-proven and compelling solution that addresses critical requirements such as a focus on service management, and not just element management.

To view the multimedia assets associated with this release, go to: http://multivu.prnewswire.com/mnr/frostsullivan/52565/

(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20111012/MM82729 )

With communication service providers now looking to scale their Carrier Ethernet services, it will be critical for the service provisioning and management systems to support all the features on a large scale and MRV OCS is well suited to this task. In fact, MRV OCS leads the industry with regard to the number of devices and services supported.

"MRV OCS' Pro-Vision® was one of the first Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF)-compliant carrier-class point-and-click graphical user interface (GUI) management systems in the Carrier Ethernet demarcation market to focus on MEF services," says Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Prayerna Raina.

As a competitive service provisioning & network management system, Pro-Vision offers all the important features such as automated or point-and-click provisioning of MEF services and support for full (fault, configuration, accounting, performance, security) industry standards to be able to offer native integration with operation support systems (OSS) of service providers. It also provides equipment vendor and third-party network management systems (NMS), granular performance monitoring, and proactive fault management.

One of Pro-Vision's outstanding benefits is the zero-touch provisioning, which enables mass deployment at minimal operational cost and out-of-the-box configuration with rapid service turn-up. This feature also provides plug and play service deployment and streamlines the deployment process by reducing the need for 'truck rolls' and service calls to multiple customer premises.

However, what really makes MRV OCS' Pro-Vision stand out is its ability to scale to support tens of thousands of demarcation devices and a comparable number of MEF services. This kind of scalability is reflected in its hardware-based operations, administration, and maintenance (OAM). Hardware-based OAM's advantages include the rapid detection of faults and highly accurate delay measurements and frame loss measurements with live-traffic testing.

MRV OCS' Pro-Vision is a competitive and standards-based service provisioning and network management system. It supports important features such as continuous monitoring of devices, extensive service level agreements (SLAs) verifications, proactive fault management, advanced security by allowing multi-user security levels so that the administrator can support specific operations, and root cause analysis of events.

MRV's OptiSwitch® family is an innovative and compact carrier Ethernet switching platforms that range from the OptiSwitch 900 demarcation series to the OptiSwitch 9000 metro Ethernet aggregation series. OptiSwitch products offer service providers a full suite of carrier-grade Ethernet services along with high-availability, enhanced quality of service, security, TDM circuit emulation and hardware-based Ethernet OAM support. This full suite of OAM tools creates flexible service awareness and rigid SLAs. OptiSwitch products meet IEEE, ITU, IETF standards and MEF specifications, offering complete control to simplify deployment and management while maintaining full interoperability and visibility into customer and provider networks.

"Since Pro-Vision is also a service management system, it can be deployed in business access networks, as well as other applications such as the mobile Ethernet backhaul network," notes Raina. "In addition, to incorporate external network-network interface (E-NNI) related features into the management system for delivering end-to-end Ethernet services across multiple service providers, MRV OCS actively participates in the Metro Ethernet Forum wherein it proposes a framework to accomplish that objective."

Pro-Vision, with its zero-touch provisioning, high scalability, enhanced security, and proactive fault management features, is ideal to address the critical service management requirements in the Ethernet demarcation segment in the Ethernet business access network.

Each year, Frost & Sullivan presents this award to the company that has demonstrated superior features and functionality as well as quality and complexity. The company has also exhibited high levels of customization, excellent product mix, and met the requirements of its target market.

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.

About MRV Communications

The Optical Communications Systems division of MRV Communications is a global provider of Carrier Ethernet, WDM transport and infrastructure management solutions since 1988. MRV products enable the delivery of next-generation optical transport and Carrier Ethernet services over any fiber infrastructure. Since its inception, MRV has demonstrated expertise and experience, offering innovative products that address future challenges while reducing network complexity and costs. MRV solutions are deployed in prominent worldwide networks of multinational service providers, wireless operators, cable MSOs, and mission-critical enterprises in government, finance, military, transportation, and utility sectors.

MRV delivers a continuous stream of innovative technologies and has won numerous technological awards for its products.  MRV's global infrastructure includes R&D centers in North America and Europe, along with support centers, and sales offices around the world.

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the Growth Partnership Company, enables clients to accelerate growth and achieve best-in-class positions in growth, innovation and leadership. The company's Growth Partnership Service provides the CEO and the CEO's Growth Team with disciplined research and best-practice models to drive the generation, evaluation, and implementation of powerful growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan leverages 50 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from more than 40 offices on six continents. To join our Growth Partnership, please visit http://www.awards.frost.com.

SOURCE Frost & Sullivan