Global Ethernet: The hot NGN

John Dumbleton, UK Managing Director of Masergy

Predicted by analysts at IDC to grow from $1.3 billion in 2007 to $6 billion in 2012, Ethernet has turned from a networking technology that many predicted would die in the 1990s, to the hot Next Generation Network says John Dumbleton, UK Managing Director of Masergy.

Carriers are starting to notice the cost savings, ease of management, flexibility and reliability of Ethernet, and are now looking to extend these benefits from the local area network (LAN) to the global wide area network (WAN). Despite the deflated economic climate, global Ethernet is currently transforming resellers’ network portfolios into powerful tools for increased long-term revenue.

The explosion in Ethernet WAN roll-outs is partly being driven by the growth in remote collaboration across a business and in turn, by the demand for real-time applications (such as video conferencing and VoIP) and the sharing of large files, none of which easily move across a traditional WAN. A truly pragmatic network solution, Ethernet allows 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 migrating a business to a converged IP environment, or improving application availability to its global network of offices.

A global Ethernet network can offer 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 and the ability to interface with any type of WAN connection are often much more expensive than standard Layer 3 Ethernet switches and interfaces. In a competitive market, resellers implementing global Ethernet have the upper hand by allowing their clients to turn their WANs into strategic assets.

However, for many network providers, setting up a global Ethernet network is not as easy or cheap as it first seems; delivering Ethernet across multiple legacy networks creates a complex and inefficient offering. Conversely, 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.

So how is global Ethernet best deployed? It is becoming widely accepted that a network based on VPLS (virtual private LAN service) provides a superior global Ethernet service. Praised by many - and none more so than analyst house Frost & Sullivan - VPLS provides a scaleable 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 as if they shared a single LAN. As all customer routers in VPLS architectures are part of the same LAN and the customer hand-off to the WAN is always solely Ethernet, customers maintain complete control over their routing and benefit from a simplified IP addressing plan. VPLS uses MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) to deliver connectivity over a mesh of logical circuits or tunnels, enabling resellers to offer managed Ethernet services with ease.

I predict that global Ethernet adoption will follow a pattern similar to that of earlier network technologies, with the early adopter stage in 2009 to the fast-followers stage in 2010. We are finding that our partners’ clients are moving forward with Ethernet from the beginning in order to take advantage of its simplicity and cost reductions. However, across the entire enterprise network market, some companies are still finding it a large paradigm shift to move from a legacy WAN to traditional MPLS - to them global Ethernet seems less proven, despite the benefits. What is clear is that MPLS has gained wide acceptance, and many businesses are ready to migrate to a secure converged network service, based on corporate requirements and level of risk aversion. Some choose the maturity of VPNs, while others choose the familiarity and flexibility of VPLS. Going forward, more resellers will seek to deliver advanced packetbased QoS networks with global service level agreements that include 100% packet delivery for real-time applications, allowing more enterprises to migrate to true next generation services.