How Carrier Ethernet Will Change the Market in 2009

By Pam Dodge, Soapstone Networks

The year 2008 saw a tremendous upswing in the popularity and adoption of Carrier Ethernet, both from the vendor and service provider communities:

• The Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) saw a 50 percent increase in enrollment between 2006 and 2008.
• Large-scale deployments began as carriers became more comfortable with vendor solutions that were MEF-certified.
• Service providers finally could see light at the end of the tunnel in regard to recouping some of the lost revenue from voice services since this technology could serve as a vehicle to rapidly deploy services, improve profit margins and grow revenue.
• The technology enabled service providers to offer new triple-play services and reduce operational costs.

Studies indicate that the deployment of Ethernet costs 49 percent less to operate than a legacy SONET/SDH-based network. This widespread acceptance of Carrier Ethernet has been due largely to the broader number of vendors that are certified with solutions, as well as the increase in service provider participants who are involved in setting these standards and driving deployment. The work toward OAM also played a major role in 2008, as it was important for this technology to hold some of the same robust features of legacy Layer 2 technologies, like frame relay and ATM. Finally, the maturation of standards such as IEEE 802.1Q — which made VLANs possible and expanded support for 4,096 VLANs, each with its own customer I.D. over a single circuit — broadens the reach and the ability to differentiate customer traffic for next-generation offerings.

Carrier Ethernet Expansion — More Service Equals Less Cost

With the progress and adoption made in 2008, Carrier Ethernet will become more widespread in 2009, extending from the metro to access, cable, wireless and mobile backhaul, to make services more ubiquitous and put more capabilities into the hands of customers. As the technology can dynamically configure bandwidth when a service is needed, Ethernet will move to the forefront as the enabler for bandwidth on-demand applications. This feature will be extremely important in the economic climate of 2009, in which carriers will not build speculative networks but instead will be more deliberate in their deployment. In cases where a new service’s take rate is high, the carrier more efficiently can deploy the service universally.

With a slowing economy, service providers will use Carrier Ethernet as the vehicle to shore up their infrastructures to allow convergence of technology so that capital and operational expenditures can be reduced. In addition, service providers will use this technology to make further advances in customer touch points, creating more portals for provisioning and monitoring capabilities for their customers.

The ability to put functionality into the hands of the customers, coupled with the ability to more cheaply deploy Ethernet, will contribute to helping the bottom line. Ethernet will enable applications such as virtualization and cloud computing. Virtualization separates service requirements from the underlying physical resources. The benefits of virtualization include more efficient resource utilization, greater flexibility in provisioning services, and a reduction in space and power.

Ethernet will serve as the medium to support applications that promote convergence, consolidation and reuse, such as:

• Data center consolidation. Every aspect of the data center is being virtualized — servers, operating systems, applications, storage and local area networks — making it possible to seamlessly resize or reallocate resources to match ever-changing requirements. Ethernet will provide the connectivity between equipment in the local network as well as the high-speed transport links to the core.
• Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). An SOA offers an application reuse capability that a growing number of carriers will leverage in 2009 to cut costs. Service providers will expect vendors to provide the ability to funnel real-time data from a Carrier Ethernet network so that service providers can validate that databases and inventory are credible for new application deployment.
• Software as a Service (SaaS). Carrier Ethernet will play a key role in cloud computing and SaaS applications since the technology can be quickly deployed at new locations to support the new services, as well as their supporting offerings and servers.
• Digital imaging. Carrier Ethernet will provide the high-speed connectivity for transporting large amounts of data required by digital imaging and gaming applications.

There will be additional enhancements to the technology with the MEF providing a key role in fostering standardization and global connectivity between service providers. In 2009, Carrier Ethernet will help facilitate these next-generation trends and applications by providing the connectivity, interworking and transport to carry these services.

As director of technical marketing for Soapstone Networks, Pam Dodge manages external marketing and sets technical direction for product marketing. She has more than 20 years of experience in the telecom industry, including voice and data networking with expertise in network management technology. Previously, she served as senior director of technical marketing for Hammerhead Systems, where she established network management direction and handled product marketing. Her strategic and product marketing experience includes positions with Lucent (Ascend and Cascade) and Astral Point (acquired by Lucent). She holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Connecticut and a Master of Business Administration from the University of New Hampshire.

Share this article: Email, Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Yahoo!MyWeb, Windows Live Favorites, Furl
Add this article feed to: RSS, My Yahoo, Newsgator, Bloglines