Table Of Contents
Product Bulletin No. 1525
Overview
System Requirements
Additional Required Components
Ordering Information
Availability
Documentation
Product Bulletin No. 1525
Cisco Subscriber Edge Services Manager Release 3.1(1) and Cisco Subscriber Policy Engine Release 1.0
This product bulletin describes new features introduced in Release 3.1(1) of the Cisco Subscriber Edge Services Manager and Release 1.0 of the Cisco Subscriber Policy Engine.
Overview
The Cisco Subscriber Edge Services Manager (SESM) is an extensible set of applications for providing on-demand services and service management. Service providers use Cisco SESM to offer and advertise value-added services and to associate these services with their brand identities. Together with the Cisco Service Selection Gateway (SSG), the Cisco SESM offers a customized, personal subscriber experience that lets service providers move up the value chain and create a services-based business model.
The Cisco Subscriber Policy Engine (SPE) combines role-based access control (RBAC) functionality with an open policy server to allow service providers to create differentiated subscriber groups. Through SPE, subscribers can perform account maintenance and self-care activities, and administrators can set subscriber and service policies.
Key Features and Benefits
•
Web-based service model—Web-based service removes the need for client software. Web-based service selection improves flexibility and convenience for subscribers, and enables service providers to bill subscribers based on connect time and services used, rather than charging a flat rate. The Cisco SESM Web portal provides subscriber authentication, service authorization, and service connection capabilities.
•Service subscription—The Cisco SESM and SPE allow subscribers to subscribe to new services through the Cisco SESM Web portal, and gain immediate access to those services.
•Account self-care—The Cisco SESM and SPE let subscribers change account details, such as address information and passwords. This capability relieves the service provider from time-consuming and costly maintenance tasks.
•Subaccounts—The Cisco SESM and SPE enable subscribers to establish multiple subaccounts, with unique service profiles and permissions for each account. For example, a parent can create subaccounts for each family member, with a different set of authorized services and management permissions within each account.
•Targeted service advertisement—The Cisco SESM with SPE allows providers to dynamically manage services, and the policies defining their visibility, to specific subscriber populations. In a brokered or wholesale business model, service providers can delegate this task to one or more content partners.
•Walled gardens and open gardens—This branded service or content environment is available only to authenticated or paid subscribers. Walled gardens allow a service provider to differentiate its offering and keep subscribers within its network. An opening in a walled garden, called an open garden, is used as an inducement to service subscription.
•Retail pages—Service providers can offer Web pages with a customized look and feel for each Internet service provider (ISP). Retail pages give each ISP the ability to create a branded portal, while allowing the access provider to participate in the additional revenue that differentiated services can provide.
•Service advertisement—The Cisco SESM Web portal provides a superior advertising mechanism to traditional postal mail or e-mail messages. Service providers can use the Cisco SESM Web portal to reach subscribers with targeted messages and increase the take rate on new services.
•Captive portal—With the ability to redirect a subscriber to a captive portal, service providers can capture a subscriber's attention with account or service messages, such as blocked access to a service or to payment requests. The captive portal feature can also direct a subscriber to services based on his or her interests or location.
•Device and locale awareness—Cisco SESM recognizes the subscriber's device, connection type, language, and region, allowing service providers to offer a Web portal that serves multiple locales and devices. Service providers can use Cisco SESM to customize the subscriber experience and make the subscriber as comfortable as possible.
•Open architecture—As a standards-based, Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE)-compliant architecture, Cisco SESM can be integrated with a service provider's existing Web infrastructure. Cisco SESM is bundled with a suitable 1.2.2 Java Runtime Environment (JRE), and the Jetty Web server is included with Cisco SESM to provide a complete turnkey solution.
System Requirements
Table 1 lists the system requirements for Cisco SESM.
Table 1 Cisco SESM System Requirements
Operating System and Workstation
|
•Solaris 2.6 or later, with 256-MB RAM (512 MB recommended) is required.
•Windows NT 4.0 with 128-MB RAM (256 MB recommended) is required.
|
Java Support
|
•Java 2 Software Development Kit (SDK) 1.2.2 or later is required for development only.
|
Web Server
|
•Cisco SESM is designed to work with any Web server that is J2EE compliant.
|
Subscriber Web Browser
|
•Subscribers must use either Netscape 4.05 or later or Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 or later.
•Browsers must support JavaScript and should have cookies enabled.
|
Additional Required Components
Table 2 lists additional components that are required in a Cisco SESM deployment.
Table 2 Additional Required Components
Cisco SSG
|
Cisco SESM requires the Cisco SSG feature set available in Cisco IOS® Release 12.1(5)DC1 or later, or Cisco IOS Release 12.2(2)B or later.
|
Remote Access Dial-In User Service (RADIUS)
|
Cisco SESM works with any RADIUS-based server that accepts vendor-specific attributes (Cisco Access Registrar recommended).
|
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP)
|
Cisco SESM is verified to interoperate with the Network Directory Service (NDS) eDirectory Version 8.5, from Novell, Inc.
|
Ordering Information
Table 3 lists part numbers for the Cisco SESM.
Table 3 Cisco SESM Part Numbers
Part Number
|
Description
|
SESM-RAD-31-EVL
|
Cisco SESM RADIUS deployment, evaluation license
|
SESM-RAD-31-50K
|
Cisco SESM RADIUS deployment, 50,000-user license
|
SESM-RAD-31-UNL
|
Cisco SESM RADIUS deployment, unlimited-user license
|
SESM-SPE-31-EVL
|
Cisco SESM SPE directory deployment, evaluation license
|
SESM-SPE-31-50K
|
Cisco SESM SPE directory deployment, 50,000-user license
|
Availability
Release 3.1(1) of the Cisco SESM software is available now from Cisco.com.
Documentation
http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/solution/sesm/sesm_311/index.htm
