Ribbon Expands SBC Solutions Portfolio to Deliver Enhanced Support for both Public and Private Cloud Environments

WESTFORD, Mass. – Ribbon Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: RBBN), a global leader in secure and intelligent cloud communications, today announced another milestone to its market-leading session border controller (SBC) solutions set by expanding its public cloud investment support on Amazon Web Services (AWS). The enhanced public cloud offering provides service provider and enterprise customers the ability to improve network agility and lower operational costs. The company’s virtualized network functions are ideal for seamlessly transitioning to public cloud architectures.

Ribbon’s public cloud support on Amazon Web Services (AWS) includes its Session Border Controller Software Edition (SBC SWe) and Policy and Routing (PSX) application.  The Ribbon SBC SWe is also now fully integrated with Amazon Web Services’ Cloudwatch service, offering complete visibility and monitoring of SBC application resource utilization. The company’s public cloud investments also include integration with open source software toolkits from industry leaders such as Red Hat and Terraform.

For customers who want to retain control and deployment of their core network functions, Ribbon’s comprehensive suite of virtual network functions (VNFs), which include the SBC SWe, PSX, Element Management System (EMS) and Virtual Network Function Manager (VNFM), offer seamless integration via a single solution and a simple path to transition to a private cloud environment. The Ribbon VNFM, which has already been deployed by a tier-one operator, also delivers advanced lifecycle management via open APIs to ensure elastic scalability and the ability to dramatically reduce the cost of monitoring, scaling and upgrading VNFs.

“Our customers are increasingly moving their network functions to the cloud, whether it is to gain efficiencies of scale, to be more agile in their ability to deliver services faster to their customers, or to improve their offerings,” said Kevin Riley, Chief Technology Officer for Ribbon Communications. “We understand that some customers want to leverage the public cloud, while others want to leverage the private cloud and some may want to deliver their services in a hybrid fashion. We have smartly designed our portfolio to support our customers, regardless of the path they choose, and we are firmly committed to continually investing in innovative, best-in-class software-based solutions that will help them deliver secure, real-time, on demand, next-generation communications services in any cloud environment.”

Riley added, “We already have active customers leveraging our technology on AWS.”

Ribbon’s SBC solution for Public Cloud support includes:

• SBC SWe on AWS to deliver deployment flexibility, high availability, redundancy and OPEX savings.
• SBC SWe using Amazon’s Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) instances for enhanced media processing performance.
• SBC SWe natively integrated with AWS’ CloudWatch service for enhanced public cloud monitoring and resource utilization.
• PSX on AWS to deliver comprehensive and intelligent session management.
• Advanced support for open source software toolkits such as Red Hat Ansible and Terraform to optimize provisioning, configuration management and application deployment.

Ribbon’s SBC solution for Private Cloud (Network Functions Virtualization or NFV) support includes:

• Distributed SBC SWe, PSX and EMS support for OpenStack and non-OpenStack-based software environments such as VMWare and KVM.
• Distributed and advanced media processing with NVidia GPU technology.
• Ribbon VNF Manager offering dramatically reduced monitoring, scaling and VNF upgrade costs.
• Key membership in the Linux Foundation and participation in various open source projects including OPNFV, ONAP and OpenDaylight. 
• Multiple VNF solutions including the SBC, PSX, Element Management System (EMS) and VNF Manager, which have been certified on Red Hat’s OpenStack Platform 13.
• Proven integration with third party orchestrators to facilitate VNF lifecycle automation on a large scale.
• Ribbon Protect, the fully virtualized analytics platform, which utilizes a Kubernetes and container based micro-services architecture.

Key Takeaways:

• Ribbon has enhanced its cloud native session border controller solution portfolio to deliver advanced support for both public and private cloud environments.
• Ribbon’s market-leading Session Border Controller Software Edition (SBC SWe) now delivers increased agility and lower operational costs on Amazon Web Services (AWS).
• Ribbon currently has customers in production leveraging its technology on AWS.
• Ribbon’s public cloud portfolio includes advanced support for leading open source software toolkits such as Red Hat Ansible and Terraform.
• The Ribbon VNF Manager, which has already been deployed by a tier-one operator, offers an integrated solution for advanced lifecycle management of Ribbon’s SBC, PSX, and EMS VNFs.

About Ribbon Communications

Ribbon Communications is a company with two decades of leadership in real-time communications. Built on world-class technology and intellectual property, the company delivers intelligent, secure, embedded real-time communications for today’s world.  The company transforms fixed, mobile and enterprise networks from legacy environments to secure IP and cloud-based architectures, enabling highly productive communications for consumers and businesses.  With a global footprint, Ribbon’s innovative, market-leading portfolio empowers service providers and enterprises with rapid service creation in a fully virtualized environment.  The company’s Kandy real-time communications software platform delivers a comprehensive set of advanced embedded and unified (CPaaS and UCaaS) communications capabilities that enables this transformation. To learn more, visit ribboncommunications.com.

Important Information Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

The information in this release contains forward-looking statements regarding future events that involve risks and uncertainties, including statements regarding delivering value to customers. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this release are forward-looking statements. Our actual results may differ materially from those contemplated by the forward-looking statements. For further information regarding risks and uncertainties associated with Ribbon Communications' business, please refer to the "Risk Factors" section of Ribbon Communications' most recent annual or quarterly report filed with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements represent Ribbon Communications' views only as of the date on which such statement is made and should not be relied upon as representing Ribbon Communications' views as of any subsequent date. While Ribbon Communications may elect to update forward-looking statements at some point, Ribbon Communications specifically disclaims any obligation to do so.