IP Gets a SONET Push
October 27, 1998
PC Week via NewsEdge Corporation : Large
enterprise customers with industrial-strength
IP networks are driving a demand for
ultrafast IP transport services.
To address that demand, service providers
and equipment vendors are releasing
packet-over-SONET (Synchronous Optical
Network) offerings that surpass the speeds
available from ATM (asynchronous transfer
mode) transport of IP data.
Despite the growing hype around the delivery
of IP protocols and services over ATM, the
more established IP-over-SONET technology
continues to gain support among equipment
vendors, which used NetWorld+Interop here
last week to introduce packet-over-SONET
gear.
At the show, Dallas-based Nortel Networks
demonstrated a new interface for its carrier
switches capable of directly linking Gigabit
Ethernet switches to SONET multiplexers,
allowing IP traffic to traverse SONET rings at
OC-192 (10M-bps) speeds.
Cabletron Systems Inc. previewed plans to
add IP-over-SONET interfaces to its
high-end router line. The interfaces, due in
the second quarter of next year, will include
both a two-port OC-3 155M-bps and a
single-port OC-12 622M-bps interface. Both
will operate in the SmartSwitch Router 2000,
8000 and 8600.
But Cabletron, of Rochester, N.H., is hedging
its bets: It will also deliver in the second
quarter support for IP over ATM in interfaces
for its SmartSwitch routers.
Also at the show, Packet Engines Inc., of
Spokane, Wash., announced a new IP-
over-SONET interface for its PowerRail 2200
routing switch and PowerRail 5200
high-density routing switch, which supports
up to 73 Gigabit Ethernet ports. Packet
Engines will support OC-3c (concatenated)
and OC-12c interfaces.
The SONET interfaces will be available by the
end of the year, priced beginning at $15,000.
Carriers currently employing packet over
SONET within their networks include the
following:
Frontier GlobalCenter Inc., of Rochester,
N.Y., whose Optronics network architecture
achieves backbone speeds of 2.5G bps;
Sprint Corp., of Kansas City, Mo., which has
one 2.5G-bps packet-over-SONET network
segment in operation; and
UUNet, an MCI WorldCom Inc. company
based in Fairfax, Va., which last month
introduced its 155M-bps packet-over-SONET
service.
Products such as these, and forthcoming
services that will use them, are filling the
demands of extremely high-bandwidth
applications.
"We use ATM in quite a few places, and for
[our Internet data center] it made a lot more
sense to use packet directly over
SONET," said Arne Josefsberg, general
manager of global networking at Microsoft
Corp., in Redmond, Wash.
Microsoft last week revealed that it is using
a 622M-bps SONET circuit provided by Sprint
between the carrier's Internet point of
presence and Microsoft's Internet data
center.
<<PC Week -- 10-26-98>>
[Copyright 1998, Ziff Wire] |
