Sun Microsystems, the creator of the free and open source Solaris Operating System (OS), and Comptel Corporation, a leading Operations Support System (OSS) software vendor for convergent mediation, charging, provisioning and network inventory, today announced that they will jointly provide a turn-key Data Retention Solution to mobile and fixed telecom operators worldwide for data retention of voice call and Internet traffic related data.
The Data Retention Solution is designed to fully support the requirements of the European Union (EU) Data Retention Directive (EDRD), including phase two, which covers the retention of data from IP and data networks. According to the EDRD, mobile and fixed operators in all 27 EU member countries should have a data retention solution in place by September 15, 2007.
EDRD, which the EU issued in March 2006, mandates the retention of voice call and Internet traffic related data in all 27 member countries to be used in cases of serious crimes, including terrorism. The directive includes the retention of data from mobile phones, Internet and fixed telephony, Internet access and e-mail. Any affected party needs to retain essential information about these communications. According to the directive, data must be retained for a period of time between six months and two years, but some member states have chosen to extend that period to up to five years.
“This EU directive is very problematic and costly to implement from an operators’ point of view. Consider for example the wide variety of sources of data, and volumes involved. This is why Comptel’s expertise in telecom data collection, and Sun hardware and software expertise are the perfect combination to solve this problem quickly and cost-effectively for operators,” says Markku Penttinen, the EVP Convergent Mediation for Comptel Corporation.
“Sun has been one of Comptel’s strategic partners for many years. We have successful joint references from smaller to large solutions handling over 20 million subscribers and 1 billion call data records per day including retention of call data”, says Jarmo Kuusivuori, Managing Director for Sun Microsystems Finland.
Comptel’s field-proven and market-leading mediation software is used to collect and process the call data from the various networks. Comptel’s software runs on Sun Fire servers, running the Solaris 10 OS, the most advanced OS on the planet. The data itself is stored to a low-cost database, which removes the need for any expensive 3rd party licenses. The stored data is compressed automatically using the Solaris ZFS file system. Sun StorageTek storage systems take care of the physical storing of the data during the retention years. Comptel’s state-of-the-art software has off-the-shelf features covering auditing, user profiles and other security requirements for the comprehensive data retention solution.