Network infrastructure - Breaking down the carrier barrier
It's been around for a few years, but VPLS may be the technology that makes Global 
Ethernet a truly viable option for carriers, and is set for further adoption in 2010, says John Dumbleton
Who would have thought that a networking technology which many predicted would die in the 1990s would evolve into the hot next generation network, growing at an annual rate of 20% in 2009? Yet that's what is happening according to market research company IDC, who estimates the worldwide market for Carrier Ethernet services will grow to $17.5 billion by 2011.
The explosion in Ethernet roll-outs is in part being driven by demand for the transport of greater amounts of information between offices, due to increased remote collaboration across businesses. This change is feeding the growth of real time applications (such as video conferencing and VoIP) and the sharing of large files, none of which easily move across traditional WANs. The qualities of Ethernet allow for the high bandwidth these modern business applications require, while the protocol eliminates the need to have separate networks for different traffic profiles. Ethernet is therefore an ideal solution for companies wishing to migrate to a converged IP environment, or for enhancing application availability to their global network of offices.
For many network providers, setting up a global Ethernet network is not easy or cheap. Delivering Ethernet services across a kludge of technologies creates a complex and inefficient offering. Fortunately, network providers without the baggage of legacy networks are able to offer customers a cost-effective, simplified global network that guarantees quality of service (QoS) end-to-end.
Pure Ethernet uses existing Layer 1 networks, the majority of which are fibre. The bandwidth capabilities of fibre have increased dramatically since 2000, when light was split into multiple colours to allow the transmission of many times more data down a single cable. Cable companies in the UK are showing steady growth, and although fibre is still the physical access method of choice, Ethernet over copper and microwave will become a more viable and cost effective option, sustaining future growth.
Older networking technologies, such as frame relay, were rolled out in the 1990s to support point-to-point and hub-and-spoke networks that interconnect LANs running less-demanding applications. Frame relay was initially designed to handle LAN traffic that was bursty in nature and is suited to processing frames of different length. Enterprises could effectively support these older applications over T1 (1.544 Mbps) and sub-T1 hub-and-spoke frame relay networks. Frame relay is not efficient, however, at carrying real time traffic such as voice and video because the hubs delay the connections between LANs.
Ethernet is seen by many as a superior option to frame relay, ATM and private line, all of which have been steadily losing ground to newer technologies such as IP, which are able to provide increased reliability, scalability and cost-effectiveness in transforming network solution offerings. IP-based networks are optimised to run in a point-to-multipoint topology, which enables fast connections between LANs and WANs to support real time applications and large data transmissions. A global Ethernet service significantly reduces the complexity of network implementations, allowing the end-user to make use of the available bandwidth more effectively. This simplification is possible as direct interconnections to customers can be done using existing LAN equipment, without the need for additional WAN routers and CSU/DSUs.
An Ethernet network also offers significant cost savings by negating the need for special equipment and port adaptors, allowing companies to reduce the cost of rolling out their communications devices. Fully capable routers with high speed interfaces (T1/E1/DS3/OCN) and the ability to interface with any type of network connection are often much more expensive than Layer 3 Ethernet switches and interfaces, the standard devices used when deploying a global Ethernet solution. The equipment used within a global Ethernet network is easier to source, manage and replace, resulting in a lower total cost of ownership (TCO).
So how is global Ethernet best deployed? A growing number of observers believe that a network based on VPLS (virtual private LAN service) is the superior method of providing a global Ethernet service. Praised by many - and none more so than analyst house Frost & Sullivan - VPLS provides a scalable multi-point Ethernet VPN service. VPLS allows multiple Ethernet LANs at different sites to be connected together as if they were connected to the same Ethernet segment, effectively making all customer sites appear to be on the same LAN, benefiting from the same bandwidth and QoS. Since all customer routers in VPLS architectures are part of the same LAN and the service provider hand-off to the customer is always Ethernet, customers can maintain complete control over their Layer 3 while benefiting from a simplified IP addressing plan.
As early as 2002, we saw the potential market for VPLS as an alternative to frame relay with none of the usual decreases in service quality, such as security and reliability. Our customers began asking about a network service that would extend the customers' LAN across their WAN, while providing fully-meshed Layer 2 multipoint connectivity. This led to MASERGY's roll out of the first commercial VPLS service in June 2003. In June 2004, we launched a unique delivery service called Intelligent Transport that offers Ethernet on a serial connection to deliver Ethernet anywhere enterprises do business. The Intelligent Transport service uses an Intelligent Bridge to provide an Ethernet hand-off over a serial connection, which allows the delivery of multiple transport services (Public IP, Private IP and VPLS) over virtual local area connections (VLANs). Customers are given the flexibility of choosing a single service or multiple services over a single interface. When native Ethernet is unavailable at competitive prices, we simply deploy a serial connection and install the MASERGY Intelligent Bridge to provide Ethernet hand-offs to customers. This IP MPLS transport service is unique in being able to guarantee end-to-end QoS, agnostic of the access type in each country, while also allowing customers to put their private and public networks on the same circuit. Today this service continues its differentiation by providing dynamically allocated bandwidth across multiple service types (hierarchical QoS) for highly-efficient bandwidth utilization.
My observation is that global Ethernet adoption is following a pattern similar to that of earlier network technologies, and going forward I expect take-up in 2010 will move this technology from the early adoption stage to the fast-followers stage. Furthermore, Ethernet's growing acceptance in the industry as the future of global networking allows businesses to employ Ethernet with the peace of mind that this truly is a future-proof solution that provides compatibility with all network solutions.
About the Author: John Dumbleton is UK Managing Director of MASERGY
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