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February 8, 2008
• Vol.30 Issue 6
Page(s) 25 in print issue
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Big Pipes On The Way
What’s Driving 10GbE & MPLS Adoption?
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Bandwidth-intensive technologies and applications such as VoIP, streaming media, and IPTV are driving the adoption of networking technologies capable of supporting increasingly heavy IP loads. Anything and everything is ported to the Internet, and our appetite for bandwidth continues to grow in both the enterprise and consumer sectors.
In an effort to ramp up bandwidth, carriers and enterprises are rolling out two technologies—MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) and 10GbE—both designed to deliver data faster and more efficiently.
 A New Way To Carry Data
According to the most recent data from a study conducted by Nemertes Research, MPLS-based services grew from 24% to 42% between 2004 and 2006. More than half of the respondents were either currently using or planning to implement MPLS by the end of 2006.
As the adoption of MPLS grows, ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) and frame relay services are declining. Infonetics Research estimates during the next 15 to 20 years, ATM will become obsolete.
Charles Thompson, manager of sales engineering for Network Instruments (www.network
instruments.com), sees MPLS becoming commonplace as the technology is increasingly being engineered into architectural designs. “In some ways, it’s being forced upon the user base because the carriers are transitioning away from legacy technologies, especially frame relay,” he says.
Another factor contributing to the shift toward MPLS is the trend toward decentralization. “You look at companies that are starting to have multiple data centers, multiple disaster recovery sites located both here in the U.S. and around the world. Decentralization is being pushed by two factors. One factor being the sheer amount of data that organizations are moving through the network,” notes Thompson.
Also contributing to decentralization is a change in acquisition handling. Thompson has seen larger organizations acquire smaller companies and create subsidiaries. Instead of replacing existing infrastructure, they’re simply adding those into the overall infrastructure—not getting rid of them but simply offering connectivity to them. “MPLS has been a huge factor in that trend,” he says.
The Next Generation Of Ethernet
Carriers are also increasing their use of Ethernet as speeds have increased tenfold in the latest standards for 10GbE. Infonetics Research reported that in 2006 and 2007, Ethernet traffic increased by 90% to 100%.
Aside from carriers, Thompson is seeing more companies migrate to hosted apps as bandwidth becomes available. However, many of the people that Thompson has spoken to seem to think the emergence of a mesh network such as MPLS could push 10GbE to the back burner. “Now I don’t have these giant single pipes running to a main location. Instead, I’ve got a lot of smaller pipes running to different locations,” Thompson theorizes, although he estimates that scenario holds true in only half of cases.
But with 10GbE coming down in price, Thompson thinks that enterprises will begin to free up their GbE ports that previously ran as backbones or inner switch connects and expand infrastructures by adding a few 10GbE links while reallocating smaller links.
Changes & Challenges
With the adoption of technologies such as 10GbE and MPLS, there will be fundamental changes in users’ computing habits. “The absolute thought of burning a disc and handing it to someone is such an archaic process these days already. Thanks to increasing bandwidth, media is fast becoming a thing of the past,” says Thompson.
The transition to MPLS and 10GbE will also create a number of challenges for smaller organizations. With their maturity, frame relay and ATM are well-understood. With the move toward MPLS, SMEs will initially have to rely on their carriers. “What I’m seeing now is that carriers are saying ‘I’m not going to give a T1. I’m not going to give you a DS3. What I’m going to give you is an RJ45 cable running straight Ethernet, and I’m going to strip all of that MPLS off at that last carrier site before it arrives to you. That way, you don’t have to worry about anything,” says Thompson. While that may prove beneficial for many organizations, they will be sacrificing some independence and visibility into their networks and reduce their ability to make the carriers accountable to the terms and quality of their service.
The bottleneck at this point in the adoption of MPLS and 10GbE is monitoring and security. Currently, there are plenty of available tools in the Gigabit Ethernet realm that exist, but many of the players in the security space don’t currently have the capacity for 10GbE IDS/IPS and network monitoring solutions.
That’s not to say there are no products available. For example, F5 (www.f5.com), a leader in application delivery networking technology, offers 10GbE capacity on its line of BIG-IP products. Peter Silva, technical marketing manager for F5’s BIG-IP Application Security Manager, sees 10GbE as the threshold for monitoring and security services, though. “Realistically, when we get to speeds like 40GbE or even 100GbE, for their implementation I just don’t see that security will be implemented at that level.” 
by Sandra Kay Miller
What’s The Difference?
MPLS
Multi Protocol Label Switching is not a service; instead, it is a type of mechanism for carrying data over packet-switched networks. Operating between the data link layer (Layer 2) and the network layer (Layer 3) has earned it the casual designation of the “Layer 2.5” protocol. Not just limited to IP traffic, MPLS offers integrated data transmission service for packet switched networks, including those carrying ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode), SONET, and Ethernet.
The differentiating factor of MPLS is packets are tagged with a unique forwarding equivalence class, or FEC, by adding a short bit sequence upon entering the network. Routers armed with FEC tables don’t need to perform header analysis independently at each router once a packet enters the network.
10GbE
10 Gigabit Ethernet is the next generation of approved Ethernet standards specified by the IEEE. It can be used over fiber, copper cabling, or twisted pair. 10GbE operates using full duplex links connected by switches and, therefore, is still able to support all services, such as VLANs, QoS, VoIP, security, and MPLS. |
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