OpenCloud, which supplies of open standards-based application servers for the deployment of next-generation convergent telecoms services, has announced the launch of OpenCloud Rhino 1.4.5, the latest version of its JAIN SLEE standard-compliant application server. Rhino 1.4.5s carrier-grade platform is specifically designed to address the growing need for robust and manageable IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) services within the telecoms market. 
In a market estimated to be worth up to $5.1billion (2.6 billion) by 2009 (UBS Investment 6Research Q-Series: Communications Equipment, 17 January 2006), Rhino 1.4.5 enables operators, network equipment providers (NEPs) and ISVs to provide innovative new IMS services, without compromising on quality of service. The open and horizontal next generation platform is the first within the industry, says OpenCloud, to support the reliability, availability and scalability requirements of increasingly complex telecom services, allowing Tier-1 carriers to provide robust, continuously available IMS applications which preserve their brand and differentiate them from other service providers.
While the provision of IMS services has traditionally been hampered by unreliable delivery and difficulties around integration, OpenCloud says Rhino 1.4.5 provides continuous availability, linear scalability, low latency and manageability, to ensure that services can be brought to market with confidence. Rhino 1.4.5 provides continuity for SIP sessions, even in the face of full node failures, and also supports the full range of Diameter protocols to ensure that services developed on Rhino can seamlessly interface with external systems for authentication, authorisation and accounting purposes.
As operators call for more fault-tolerance in IMS application servers, we have extended Rhinos resilience characteristics to provide for SIP continuity says OpenCloud Vice President of R&D, David Long. In a high performance open service environment, we believe that these enhancements will ensure that Rhino becomes the enabling platform of choice for IMS services.
Third parties can download the OpenCloud Rhino 1.4.5 Software Development Kit  (SDK) at no cost here.  The SDK and full Developers Workbench enable users to start developing innovative IMS services in a comprehensive communications environment directly on their PCs.