In Amsterdam, October 11–14, the IIR held the 7th annual Carrier Ethernet World Congress (CEWC). Carrier Ethernet continues to grow solidly, driven by upgrades to the mobile backhaul portion of the network. Future carrier Ethernet growth could come from new initiatives such as cloud services. The optimal architecture for core bandwidth management continues to be debatedearly days for cloud services but the list of applications is growing. Verizon is working on developing integrated pricing models for applications and the underpinning bandwidth to facilitate more widespread enterprise adoption. Colt is also working on the business model portion of its future cloud initiatives, which will leverage its network and data center strengths. Colt foresees the need for a time-slot-oriented charging model. Colt cited video delivery via satellite as a precedent for a successful time-slot-based charging structure. One of the key tenants of cloud services is “consume resources as needed.” Colt would like to apply the time-slot model to the wireline network to enable the development of the cloud services market.
Carrier Ethernet continues to have substantial growth upside, with differing growth drivers around the globe. Carrier Ethernet bandwidth will continue to grow based on the increasing-the-value initiatives by leading carriers in the developed world. Carriers in the developing world will also drive Ethernet growth through network modernization and mobile data expansion efforts.
To OTN or not to OTN?
What is the optimal bandwidth management architecture? The industry has two fundamental methods for bandwidth management: a Layer-3–Layer-0 (L3–L0) method, MPLS switching with DWDM, and a L3–L1–L0 method, which adds an OTN switching layer. The bandwidth management paradigms within the industry need to be re-evaluated to match the scale of emerging terabit transport systems. The challenge for carriers is to determine the most cost-effective way forward. For carriers, the analysis starts with an understanding of today’s traffic and the traffic growth expected in the future. Many carriers expect that traffic will grow dramatically in the packet portion of their network: packet-based mobile backhaul, packet-based residential broadband, and packet-based enterprise services. Intuitively, packet traffic bandwidth would best be managed by a packet switch. For many carriers, their traffic is not exclusively packet. There is a TDM portion as well for mission-critical enterprise services and for carrier’s carrier services. The TDM traffic must be managed today and into the foreseeable future.
At CEWC, the discussion continued. More carriers are citing not only vision alignment with OTN for bandwidth management but also progress in their live networks. To be fair to the advocates of L3–L0 bandwidth management, one vendor’s next-generation solution will be effectively available in 2012, so, at this point in time, it would be difficult for carriers to talk about live network cases.
The answer to the question posed at the beginning of the section is: “it depends.” The optimal architecture will depend on an individual carrier’s view of today’s traffic, future projected traffic, operational paradigms, and expectations of future equipment cost reductions. Ovum’s opinion is unchanged in that we see the market ultimately following a mix of bandwidth management strategies, both L3–L0 centric and OTN based. Ovum does not expect leading carriers to radically change their existing bandwidth strategies, but rather to evolve them over time.
