Internet VPNs Ready for Prime Time

The Internet is destined to become the world's business network, providing the global networking foundation for data and, according to many, voice communications.

As new business initiatives continue to drive the use of technology as a strategic business enabler, the Internet will continue to rise to the top as the only solution with the flexibility, diversity and ubiquity needed to keep pace with the new generation of business-to-business, e-commerce and remote access applications.

Given the dramatic potential for e-business growth and the anticipated drain on corporate resources, there is accelerated interest in outsourcing major elements of the network infrastructure to service providers. Frame relay was a strong public networking solution for corporate communications in the 90s. With the significant technology and infrastructure investments in performance, security and Internet protocol (IP) services, the Internet is proving to be the strategic foundation for the generation of business applications now appearing on the scene.

Internet virtual private network (VPN) success will continue to be driven as new paradigms for conducting business with, and on behalf of, global customers and partners emerge. The list of applications, including corporate intranets, partner/supplier extranets, remote access and e-commerce are well understood. The common thread among these applications is their need for flexible and diverse connectivity. Users must have the ability to reach any site using any type of access from any place in the world. Ease and speed of application deployment are often critical success factors. High performance and security are mandatory.

In its purest form, the Internet has always enabled low-cost, any-to-any access to a global base of users and information. It achieves ubiquity as a collection of networks that cooperate through compliance with standard IP networking technologies and well-established peering arrangements. A user connecting to one Internet service provider (ISP) can reach a user on any other connection to the Internet. This global, any-to-any model of communication is fundamental to the commerce applications now envisioned.

The Internet also features a broad diversity of access technologies, allowing many options to achieve best-cost performance and time to deployment. For example, dial access is widely available, and high-speed dedicated connections already reach OC-3 rates. Aggressive cable and digital subscriber line (DSL) rollouts are further expanding both business and residential access options at very competitive prices.

Cost, while not the driving factor, is another advantage of Internet VPN services. In fact, the cost of an Internet VPN service is often lower than traditional frame relay services, particularly as connectivity increases. This comes in part with the larger scale of the Internet. Many national ISPs have between 600 and 800 points of presence (PoPs), regional access partnerships and a large international presence. The important benefits are lower access costs in the Unites States and easier international connection when compared to frame relay services.

Cost differences generally widen in the Internet's favor as connectivity and bandwidth requirements increase. Given the connectionless nature of IP services, a customer can buy a single IP interface with the flexibility to reach any number of locations on the Internet. There is no requirement to pay for separate connections between users, unlike the case with frame relay permanent virtual circuits (PVCs). Cost is further managed with the ability to use a single Internet interface for both secure VPN traffic and open Internet communications.

The Internet is often criticized for the best-effort nature of its service. All traffic is treated equally, which means higher-priority applications have no better quality of service (QoS) guarantee than lower-priority applications. However, new Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)-driven standards like differentiated services (DiffServ) and multiprotocol label switching (MPLS), when combined with the new generation of customer located QoS-enabled access routers, are now positioned to deliver very effective Internet QoS.

Access routers using advanced IP QoS technologies, such as class-based queuing (CBQ), can flexibly classify and explicitly control corporate traffic to meet specific business priorities. DiffServ extends this control by providing a standard way to map these corporate priorities into the different service levels offered by the network provider. Implementing DiffServ with advanced IP classification and control technologies, such as CBQ, will enable absolute rates of IP service comparable to frame relay committed information rates (CIRs). Other technologies, such as MPLS, further improve performance by allowing backbone traffic engineering that allocates backbone network resources to different qualities of service based on the aggregated traffic of many customers.

ISPs have spent billions of dollars in the last 18 months adding bandwidth, expanding their PoPs and establishing international positions. They also are being very aggressive in their service level commitments, with the most advanced providers now offering 100 percent network uptime and explicit round-trip latency commitments. These large-scale Internet investments have been instrumental in preparing the Internet for a new wave of business applications able to serve a global community of corporate users, e-commerce and business partner applications.

So, when, where and why are Internet VPNs the right choice? The simple answer is whenever a business requires quick, adaptable and scaleable connectivity to customers, partners or employees anywhere in the world.

Karen Barton is vice president of marketing for Xedia Corp., Acton, Mass. She can be reached at kbarton@xedia.com.

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