Next-Generation IP Networking

Position Paper

Next-Generation

IP Networking

Ethernet emerges as an ideal

choice for global networking

Ethernet is breaking new ground as a key technology for service

providers and carriers in wide area networking. With the

emergence of 10-Gigabit Ethernet, it's time to reconsider the

role of Ethernet. Long considered a LAN/enterprise technology,

it's poised to be the reliable, cost-effective, and speedy

work-horse of global service provider packet networks. Now Nortel

Networks offers a complete portfolio of carrier-grade technologies

that bring Ethernet into the service provider market for

To keep pace with

demand, worldwide IP

broadband access capacity

has to grow by 50 terabits

per second in the next

six years—a cumulative

average growth rate

of nearly 100 percent

per year.

Explosive Internet growth has placed unprecedented demands on the global network. For corporations, the World Wide Web has created new opportunities to increase productivity and expand market presence, while at the same time driving intense competitive pressures. Similarly, in the consumer market, web usage continues to explode as users increasingly realize the benefits of the information available to them for personal, educational, or entertainment purposes. The number of non-PC devices, such as television set-top boxes, IP-enabled telephones, and personal digital assistants that will be connected to the Web is expected to exceed 89 million by 2001, according to Renaissance Worldwide, Inc. research. The networking of these and other intelligent devices in the home will further change the way consumers use technology (and hence bandwidth).

To meet demand coming from these diverse areas, worldwide IP broadband access capacity is forecast to grow by 50 terabits per second during the next six years; a cumulative average growth rate of close to 100 percent, according to John Matthews of Ovum.

This network growth

requirement will affect

all parts of the network:

access, metropolitan

area network (MAN),

and backbone.

This surging demand for bandwidth will impact all parts of the network, from backbone to MAN to access layers. While dense wave division multiplexing (DWDM) is exploding the capacity available in the backbone or long haul portion of the network, and Gigabit Ethernet is the choice for the enterprise, low bandwidth connections still dominate the metropolitan and access/collector networks between the two. Metro networks (and subsequently access networks) will also have to be upgraded as part of the solution to eliminate the bandwidth bottleneck.

The market is ready. Many consumers have reached the limits of their tolerance with dial-up 56K modems and are start-ing to move to 1-Mbps services. Many more businesses are upgrading their LANs to Fast and Gigabit Ethernet and looking to extend these at native speeds into the MAN and WAN. The challenge facing network service providers now is how to meet this demand for bandwidth in a cost-effective way, while ensuring scalability, reliability, and ease of provisioning new services.

Innovative service

providers are

implement-ing IP-based networks

using Ethernet over an

optical transport network.

To meet these networking challenges requires a new type of network architec-ture—one that permits transport of traffic in its native format with high-speed access, a high degree of scalability, and the potential for easy capacity upgrades as required. Innovative service providers are implementing IP-based networks using Ethernet over an optical (SONET/SDH or DWDM) transport network as the answer to these requirements.

The new 10-Gigabit

Ethernet technology

provides a promising

new option for WAN

transport at the payload

capacity of an OC-192 line.

Ethernet has traditionally been regarded as a local area network (LAN) transport technology. However, new 10-Gigabit Ethernet technology promises to meet new capacity demands and extend Ethernet capabilities from a LAN only transport technology to a workhorse for the entire global network—with applications in metropolitan area networks, points of presence, and wide area networks.

At a 9.58-Gbps data rate, Ethernet becomes an immediate and significant option in the WAN, eliminating proto-col conversion, enabling multivendor interoperability, end-to-end compatibility, and seamless integration of the LAN, WAN, and MAN. (The 9.58-Gbps rate is the actual payload capacity rate of an OC-192 line, with the traditional optical standards coding overhead subtracted.)

Ethernet offers ubiquity,

economy, simplicity,

and scalability. It’s the

de facto standard for

desktop LANs.

There are a variety of reasons for Ethernet to be the technology of choice for an end-to-end network solution. The vast majority of business PCs today are connected to Ethernet LANs, making Ethernet one of the most ubiquitous, well-understood, and least expensive technologies in the world. Skilled resources with Ethernet experience are more readily available than those with ATM experience.

By 2003, Ethernet-based technologies will account for more than 97 percent of the world’s network connection shipments, according to International Data Corporation (IDC) research.

A May 1999 study from Business Communications Research (BCR) showed that 75 percent of respondents plan on installing switched Fast

As traditional network

boundaries become

blurred, the ideal choice

is a unified solution that

operates at all scales.

As the boundaries of local, metropolitan, and wide area networks continue to blur, network unification requires segments connecting to each other more easily, at lower cost, and with fewer net-work operational and management requirements. In this environment, solutions that can function at high performance, high efficiency, and high reliability at all scales—such as the Nortel Networks end-to-end Optical Ethernet solution—have the potential to play dominant roles in the growth of the global network.

10-Gigabit Ethernet offers

a backbone counterpart

to the LAN and MAN

Ethernet technologies

already available.

The complete and integrated product portfolio from Nortel Networks, combined with the company’s leadership in developing 10-Gigabit Ethernet, enables a common link-layer protocol for the entire network. The marriage of high-speed optical networks and the common Ethernet denominator means that many of the bottlenecks associated with current network topologies will be a thing of the past.

Key benefits of an

end-to-end Optical

Ethernet solution are:

•

of Ethernet in the LAN, combined with well-known fiber-optic transport in the MAN and WAN, will provide a reliable platform for connections in the LAN, MAN, and WAN.

•

band-width have grown, the Ethernet standard has evolved to higher speeds while maintaining compatibility with existing network infrastructure. 10-Gigabit Ethernet will continue this trend.

•

9.58-Gbps implementation rate, 10-Gigabit Ethernet is a plug-and-play solution that interworks with existing carrier optical networks, protecting a carrier’s investment in existing infrastructure while adding additional capability at a low implementation cost.

•

in operation, Ethernet offers the lowest cost-per-Mbps of all competing data transport technologies (according to Dell’Oro Group, 1997). In addition, the relative cost of adopting Ethernet technology, considering its maturity and installed base, is low. It also permits the corporation to leverage the massive human capital associated with accumulated training and deployment of Ethernet technology.

•

10-Gigabit Ethernet over optical fiber enables new levels of scalability and high-bandwidth applications in the LAN, low-cost, revenue-generating applications in the metropolitan area network, more efficient operation in meshed topologies, higher-capacity points of presence, and economical long haul transport. These characteristics bring with them a fundamentally more affordable network topology based upon seamless LAN/MAN/WAN integration. Service providers who adopt Ethernet-based network architectures will set the standard for price/performance (bandwidth cost/bit reduction), scalability, and ease and speed of provisioning new services, with which everyone else will have to compete.

Nortel Networks offers

key components of the

end-to-end Optical

Ethernet infrastructure.

Nortel Networks has a full portfolio of carrier-grade technologies to support Ethernet in all network arenas: access, central office or PoP (point of presence), and backbone.

•

integrate Ethernet switching across the complete OPTera and

TransportNode product lines

•

Ethernet aggregation

•

Ethernet connection

•

portfolio for end-to-end network management

Summary

According to a report in Networking Europe, December 1999, the market for 10-Gigabit Ethernet service will grow from $71 million in 2001 to $1.8 billion in 2003. By choosing end-to-end Optical Ethernet networking from Nortel Networks, service providers can significantly streamline their networks, gain their shares of this growing market, while reducing capital expenditures by more than 30 percent.

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Copyright (C) 2000 Nortel Networks Corporation. All rights reserved. Information in this document is subject to change without notice. Nortel Networks Corporation assumes no responsibility for any errors that may appear in this document.