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August 9, 1999
High-Speed
Bandwidth: Terabit
Safety Net
ISPs are installing
high-end devices that one
day will reach terabit
speeds. Does corporate
America really need all
that bandwidth? Not this
year.
By PAUL KORZENIOWSKI
With corporate bandwidth usage
doubling every three months,
carriers are mapping out plans to
boost the capacity of their core
networks-the place where data is
funneled and shipped over
high-speed, long distance lines.
To keep pace with the demand,
carriers are installing routers that
can support multiple Gbps
transmissions, with an eye
toward installing switches that
can support terabits-per-second
(Tbps) speeds.
Why should corporate network
managers care? Delivery of
high-end routers could lead to a
bandwidth glut that will drive
down prices on services, making
it easier for enterprises to afford
bandwidth-intensive applications.
Also, the technology used to
support the new high-speed
transmissions will eventually
make its way into enterprise
networks. Of course, a few
years will pass before that
transition is complete, since
companies are just now trying to
determine how to fill up Gigabit
Ethernet connections.
The business case for building a
terabit safety net is based on the
assumption that Internet
bandwidth growth will continue
unabated over the next few
years. Whether or not that will
happen is uncertain. Since e-mail
and spreadsheet transmissions
will not fill up such large pipes,
the expectation is that
businesses and consumers will
deploy new apps to use the
bandwidth-although no one
seems quite sure what those
apps will be.
Mark Lefebure, vice president of
data service engineering at
carrier IXC Communications Inc.,
points to three emerging
high-bandwidth applications. He
says consumers will be
interested in infotainment
services like video-on-demand;
corporations will continue to
deploy new e-commerce
systems; and companies will
replace private network
connections with virtual private
networks. Another driver:
Companies will outsource
application maintenance to ISPs,
which also will increase Internet
bandwidth requirements.
The First Wave
Carriers are now installing
routers that offer speed greater
than 10 Gbps in their network
core. Argon Networks, Cisco,
Juniper Networks, NetCore
Systems and Torrent Networking
Technologies all offer such
devices.
MCI Worldcom has deployed
these routers in two locations: in
the Internet backbone of Uunet
and a network that supports a
research project sponsored by
the National Science Foundation.
Uunet, which has an equity
investment in Juniper Networks
Inc., has been at the forefront of
moving to OC-48 (2.4 Gbps)
speed at its network core. At the
beginning of the year, the
company used Juniper switches
to support connections among
hubs located in New York City;
Washington, D.C.; and Atlanta,
and plans to expand to
coast-to-coast links by the end of
this summer. MCI Worldcom also
chose Juniper routers for its
research network and installed
them in February. "The Juniper
switches have proven to be
reliable and provide us with
enough bandwidth so the lines
are no longer close to full
utilization,' says Rick Wilder,
director of advanced Internet
engineering at MCI Worldcom.
MetaWire Inc. is another carrier
that requires multiple gigabit
connections at its core. The
5-year-old company handles
high-quality video and voice
transmissions for numerous
Hollywood production
companies. To service these
users, the firm has four data
centers in the Los Angeles area
that support server farms running
on a mix of PC and Unix
machines.
In the spring of 1998, MetaWire
started to look for higher-speed
routers to replace the Cisco
7500 systems operating at its
core. Impressed with Torrent
Networking Technologies Corp.'s
IP9000 router, the carrier
installed the product last
summer. "Once we got the
routers running, we had enough
bandwidth in place to help our
customers with services such as
cybertelecasts,' says company
president Byron Wagner.
Verio Inc. began a similar
evaluation in the summer of
1998. It needed routers that
would support OC-3 (155 Mbps)
and OC-12 (622 Mbps)
transmissions. After examining
Cisco's Gigabit Switch Router
(GSR) 1200 and Juniper's M40
routers, Verio selected the latter
because of its higher-speed
backplane and better throughput.
The carrier installed the product
in October 1998 and ran the
Juniper network in parallel with
its existing backbone for a couple
of months before cutting over
completely. "These high-end
routers are still in an early stage
of development, so a carrier has
to make sure they are working
properly before using them to
support production traffic,' says
Chris DeMarche, Verio's chief
technology officer.
GST Telecommunications Corp.
operates a network that services
customers mainly in the western
United States. The company
relied on Cisco 7000 series
routers to support its 622-Mbps
connections, but replaced them
with Juniper routers in its
Chicago; Vienna, Va.; and
Houston locations earlier this
year.
No Moore
Traditionally, a core network
overhaul would provide a carrier
with three to five years of extra
capacity, depending on network
growth. However, that is not the
case with the Internet. "The
Internet is blowing away Moore's
Law, which says companies can
assimilate new technology every
12 to 18 months,' explains
Andrew Greenfield, product
manager for optical
internetworking at Cisco. "With
the Internet, consumption is
doubling every three to six
months.'
Even though MCI's core
connections are not close to
being full, the company has
already begun looking at
higher-speed alternatives. "We
think the Juniper system could
scale up to 20 Gbps but would
need a bigger bus to carry more
traffic,' says MCI Worldcom's
Wilder.
Ripping out core network
equipment every 12 to 18 months
represents an ongoing root canal
for carriers. "Problems in the
core can impact everything that
their network touches, so
carriers desire to make as few
changes there as possible,'
notes Mukesh Chatter, CEO at
router vendor Nexabit Networks
Inc.
New products geared toward
making the upgrade process
simpler are coming from start-up
suppliers, such as Avici Systems,
IronBridge Networks, Nexabit
and Pluris. These routers were
designed to scale from gigabit to
multiple terabit speeds through
software changes and new
interfaces, rather than through
the deployment of a new switch.
Such system designs would
make it simpler for ISPs to keep
pace with rapid core bandwidth
increases.
Even though vendors have
created a lot of buzz about their
terabit router products, they have
not yet backed up their claims.
"At the moment, there is a
'vaporwarish' feel to the terabit
router market,' says Lisa Alloca,
a director at market research
company Renaissance
Worldwide Inc.
Indeed, the early users talk more
about what they plan to do with
the devices than about what they
have done. Cisco routers and a
couple of Juniper systems now
support Frontier Global Center's
core network, which operates at
OC-48. "Because we are seeing
500 percent growth in network
usage annually, we want to get
to OC-192 as soon as possible,'
says Alan Hannan, director of
network architecture. In the
spring, the company evaluated
terabit products and selected
Nexabit Networks Inc.'s
NX64000 Multi-Terabit Core
Switch/Router. "Nexabit was the
first supplier with a design that
seems capable of supporting
terabit throughput,' says Hannan.
He also says the system is
resilient and features a robust
software design. The carrier has
been tinkering with the system in
its lab and expects to put the box
in production in August.
While Frontier has made its
terabit router selection, most
other carriers are sitting on the
sidelines. "No vendor has
delivered a true terabit-class
device yet,' points out GST's
Tom Niewulis, engineering
technology advisor at the
company.
So, carriers are examining the
systems in test labs and are
beginning their own trials. GST
installed Avici Systems Inc.'s
Terabit Switch/Router (TSR)
between its Los Angeles and
Oakland locations in May. The
devices will support a research
network funded by the Defense
Advanced Projects Research
Agency and the National
Transparent Optical Network
Consortium. Keep in mind that
while vendors tout architectures
that can support multi-Tbps
transmissions, the initial products
operate more in the 10-Gbps
range. To convince carriers to
purchase their products,
suppliers will need to deliver
products with more throughput.
Reliability is another issue.
Carriers want better self-healing
features and more fault tolerance
in the high-end routers.
The vendors have time to
address the problems. "The
terabit router suppliers have
taken longer than anticipated to
get their products out the door,
but that hasn't been a big deal
because no carrier now has
enough traffic to fill up a 1-Tbps
pipe,' says Joseph Skorupa,
director of switching and routing
services at market research
company Ryan Hankin Kent Inc.
The new routers will help carriers
keep pace with-maybe even get
a bit ahead of-growing bandwidth
demands. More bandwidth
means enterprises may be able
to deploy high-bandwidth apps at
better prices. So, if router
vendors deliver on their
promises, carriers should build
that terabit safety net sometime
next year.
Paul Korzeniowski is a Sudbury,
Mass.-based writer. He can be
reached at
paulkorzen@aol.com.
Link to related article:
Terabit Premium
Links to previous In
Depth stories:
Call Center
Breakthrough
Management
Frameworks: Look
Beyond The Enterprise
Web Applications:
Middle-Tier Migration
Transaction
Processing: Think Big
Picture
Data Warehousing:
Unleash The Treasure
Trove
For additional stories
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