11:36:27 AM | 21/7/2008
According to Infonetics Research, 86 percent of service providers indicated high customer demand for Ethernet services today, and the Ethernet services market is expected to reach US$22.5B worldwide by 2009.
Service providers want to maximize Ethernet not only for services but also as an infrastructure for value-added services and applications such as IPTV, broadband access, VoIP. Using Carrier Ethernet equipment for this new service infrastructure is becoming more appealing to service providers because of its lower cost and simpler operational acteristics compared with native equipment.
Technology options
In this business case, the key findings are highlighted from a Metro Ethernet business services case study which compares the CAPital Expitures (CAPEX) for several vors Carrier Ethernet infrastructure solutions proposed to support a provider&rsquos business service traffic in a major metro area.
The analysis is based on an incumbent North American provider targeting a medium-sized city with their Ethernet business services. These E-Line (provides basic point-to-point connectivity) and E-LAN services are offered via 10/100/GigE physical interfaces and have combined peak traffic of 3 Gbps at each edge device.
The incumbent providers current metro network architecture consists of 64 edge devices, two core devices and two WAN hand-off devices - all supporting QinQ (IEEE 802.1ad). Several challenges exist with the current QinQ-based network, particularly with service scalability. Hence, the provider is considering native Ethernet technologies. The proposal is to add a layer of eight aggregation devices and simultaneously replace the two existing core devices with two new core device nodes that solve the network problems associated with the QinQ implementation.
The provider&rsquos existing network infrastructure for delivering the business services has a number of challenges that the new Carrier Ethernet solution must address including: service scalability due to VLAN exhaust, MAC explosion, unsatisfactory convergence time and bandwidth inefficiencies, traffic engineering with no bandwidth reservation capability and performance monitoring with no service-based capabilities.
Two technology options were under consideration: MPLS and PBB/PBT Ethernet solution. An MPLS solution &ndash MPLS pseudowires (VPWS) are used to support the E-Line service and VPLS is used to support the E-LAN service. The hardware consists of MPLS switches. Provider Backbone Bridging (PBB) is used to provide the E-LAN service while Provider Backbone Transport (PBT) Ethernet solution is used to provide the E-Line service. The hardware consists of Ethernet switches.
Although the MPLS technology option, typically provided through competitors&rsquo multiservice routers, addresses several of the provider&rsquos current network challenges, it did not solve its performance monitoring issue. In addition, it introduces new cost challenges such as control plane complexity, higher CAPEX and OPEX. With MPLS, a variety of protocols must be supported and ubiquitous throughout the network adding to the control plane burden. This also means that the providers&rsquo network operators must learn and understand these protocols, adding to its operations burden.
Nortels Carrier Ethernet switching solution, based on PBB/PBT, delivers 43 percent to 82 percent CAPEX savings as compared to the other three vors&rsquo MPLS-based solutions, Carrier Ethernet CAPBEX analysis.
The Nortel PBB/PBT-based Carrier Ethernet solution solves all the current network challenges while achieving with minimal additional OPEX cost for provisioning of PBT trunks. The solution delivers CAPEX savings of up to 82 percent or US$6.5million per metro for this case study. Sensitivity analysis on the service demand (varying the number of GigE and 10GigE ports) resulted in equally favorable results for the Nortel solution. As the bandwidth in the metro increases over time, so do the savings generated by Nortels solution, versus the competitors solutions.
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