Copper for Ethernet Access to VPLS and MPLS Networks

April 24, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Ethernet access does not require fiber.  But this technology offers excellent scalability for VPLS and MPLS network access.

For the full year 2012, the global Ethernet access device (EAD) market grew 3.5 per cent, to $860 million, with growth slowing as a result of the economy and a drop in carrier spending.

“People keep saying that copper’s dead, but it’s not-it. It has a limited but important role for Ethernet services, as evidenced by the continued growth of using bonded copper for Ethernet in the last mile,” notes Michael Howard, principal analyst for carrier networks and co-founder of Infonetics Research. “High capacities and reach where fiber in unavailable make it a useful and effective alternative where fiber isn’t justified.”

“We expect operators to spend a cumulative $1.5 billion on EFM bonded copper EADs over the next five years (out of a cumulative $5.8 billion total for all EADs) as they increase the capacity and efficiency of mobile backhaul networks and business connections,” Continues Howard.

10/100M copper and 1G fiber dominate EAD ports today, however, 10G fiber is growing fast, forecast by Infonetics to grow at a 117 per cent CAGR through 2017. Though in slow decline, Ethernet over TDM (EoTDM) bonded circuits will remain a niche market, providing an inexpensive way to combine several E1s or T1s.

If you are thinking of obtaining a new wide area network, consider Ethernet access loops as a cost-effective and scalable access medium.

Filed Under: Network FAQs, Notes About Implementations, Quotation Thoughts, VPLS Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Bursting on an MPLS or VPLS Network

January 10, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Global Ethernet VPLSA handful of carriers support bursting on their IP-VPN networks.

Bursting can provide a real cost savings benefit to customers. First, it’s a solution for customers who don’t how much bandwidth they need at a given location. Bursting lets these customers add locations to their network at the lowest level of cost commitment.

Second, it is an ideal solution for customers who know that their bandwidth needs may spike much higher than normal due to, for example, seasonal traffic peaks. Bursting lets these customers commit to the least amount of bandwidth they need for continued use and pay for only what they use in excess of that amount.

Here’s an example of how it works:

A customer commits to 100 Mbps of bandwidth at a location. The carrier sets up their IP VPN port to handle bursting. That location can now burst traffic all the way up to 1 Gbps, or whatever their local loop capacity is. For instance, you might pay for a 100M Ethernet local loop, but pay for a committed port of 20M.  This will allow you to burst to the full 100M when the need arises.

The carrier then samples traffic leaving the port throughout the month. At the end of the month, billing is calculated for the:

  • 100M local loop
  • Committed 20 Mbps port rate; plus the,
  • Sustained traffic rate in excess of the committed rate.

The carrier typically discards the top 5% of the traffic samples taken during the month. This eliminates any spurious or unusual traffic from the billing measurement.

If customers find that their sustained traffic is significantly higher than their committed data rate (in this case, 20 Mbps), they can increase their commitment and take advantage of lower prices at higher committed sustained data rates.

If you are considering changes to your Wide Area Network and would like some specialized assistance with the process, please contact us!

Filed Under: Carriers Offering MPLS, Get MPLS Price Quote, International Networks, Network FAQs, Notes About Implementations, Quotation Thoughts, VPLS

VPLS Prices Drop Dramatically

November 27, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Prices in the marketplace are dropping as more carriers offer Ethernet Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS).  But due to limited availability in some regions, VPLS can still be an expensive WAN option to implement.

According to a recent report by research firm TeleGeography, Western Europe and the United States saw the largest price drops for VPLS services year over year.

What helped drive down VPLS costs in Europe were two factors: availability and growing competition. Europe was the first region to deploy carrier Ethernet, meaning that VPLS is now “more widely available in Europe than in any other region.” Throughout Europe there is a growing base of incumbent and competitive players offering VPLS service.

London and Frankfurt saw a strong drop in VPLS service prices. A FastE VPLS port in London was $2,918 per month in H2 2012, while the price of the same service in Frankfurt was $1,752 per month, 39 percent less than what enterprise customers had to pay last year.  So for corporate networks that include Europe and the USA, prices are exceedingly attractive.

In markets like the key cities of South America,  there aren’t as many service options, so VPLS continues to be expensive. The median price for a FastE connection in Sao Paulo was $10,973 in Q2 2012, which is twice what a business customer would pay in New York or Los Angeles, two markets where there are multiple service provider options. Again, the issue with the prices is simply service availability. In New York, VPLS availability was 28 percent versus 6 percent in Sao Paulo.

Besides Latin America, VPLS prices in Asian cities continue to be high. The median price of a FastE VPLS port in Mumbai was $22,111 per month in Q2 2012. Although Mumbai’s VPLS prices dropped 13 percent over 2011, they are still eight times what a customer would pay for the same service in London.

There does appear to be hope with VPLS pricing.

Brianna Boudreau, a TeleGeography analyst, said that as domestic U.S. and international service providers expanded their Ethernet footprints to meet the needs of multinational clients that were moving into areas such as Latin America and India, overall “VPLS service availability increased 9 percent worldwide between 2011 and 2012.”

Boudreau added that as more players “enter the market and the service continues to mature, prices will continue to decline, and regional disparities will narrow.”

VPLS is, of course, not the only service where geography and availability dictate prices. Similar trends have been seen in local access loops and international bandwidth.

Filed Under: Industry Surveys, International Networks, VPLS Tagged With: ,

Why consider VPLS for your WAN

August 28, 2012 by Leave a Comment

1) More flexibility and manageability with with VPLS

When it comes to rapid change and advancement, companies which can respond quickly to market shifts will  benefit from VPLS, a Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) solution. VPLS uses MAC addresses with Layer 2 switching as opposed to Layer 3 MPLS solutions which use IP addresses and Layer 3 routing.

The main advantage of this is that with VPLS you are in control of your own IP routing. Therefore, your IT department can be much more agile in responding to varying levels of customer demand. VPLS networks allow you to conduct rapid reconfigurations yourselves without having to contact your service provider and wait for the provider to act upon the request. Even if you do require a service provider change, the typical time to make network changes to Layer 2 VPLS networks is only a fraction of that for Layer 3 MPLS networks because the network planning process is much simpler, which could be crucial for some businesses. Another feature which aids agility is the ease of adding new sites. With a VPLS-enabled network, a new site can be added by simply changing the network router that connects the site to the VPLS network. With Layer 3 MPLS solutions, however, it is a much more complex process as all of the service provider’s routers need to be changed which typically takes 10 times as long.

2) More efficiency with VPLS

Companies with a VPLS-enabled wide area networks will be more smooth-running and thus should be able to provide a better level of service to their customers. This is down to the fact that with VPLS the company has access to its own network information so faults in a VPLS network can be isolated much faster and the IT department can trouble-shoot to fix an urgent crisis rather than having to go through a number of support engineers to get the information required from a carrier. Less network down-time means higher corporate efficiency and productivity. Another aspect of our VPLS solutions is that they offer 5 levels of Quality of Service (QoS) and allow you to define your own priority levels either through labeling your traffic or using the service aware QoS feature on the core network. This is how VPLS maximizes efficient network usage according to your business needs, so you can rest assured that mission-critical data such as CRM, ERP and SCM are allocated enough bandwidth, alongside key services such as video conferencing and telephony, even during peak usage and without costly over provisioning of network capacity.

3) Lower costs with VPLS

Companies that use VPLS solutions will find they have lower costs for a number of reasons. Firstly, VPLS enables convergence of services such as VoIP, video etc. so that all traffic can be delivered over a single Ethernet interface, eliminating multiple leased lines and resulting in economies of scale. Secondly, working with VPLS uses the same skills sets that LAN specialists have, so you would not need to provide additional training on WAN skills or hire WAN specialists. In addition, VPLS requires a lower cost CPE as it requires smaller and fewer routers than MPLS solutions.

4) Lower latencies with VPLS

As a switched, Layer 2 solution VPLS is zero-hop in the core of the network, so extremely low round-trip latencies and jitter can be achieved. For example sub 1millisecond within a metropolitan area and 67 milliseconds round-trip from London to New York. This improves the productivity of the workforce as information is available faster. It also saves retail customers using Point-of-Sale systems time dialling up to make credit/debit card payments, improving their customers’ sales experience.

Thanks to Exponential-e

 

 

 

Filed Under: Carriers Offering MPLS, Get MPLS Price Quote, Industry Surveys, International Networks, Network FAQs, Quotation Thoughts, VPLS Tagged With: , , , , ,

Ethernet E-LAN, WAN and VPLS Adoption Trends

August 14, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Global Ethernet VPLS An enterprise end-user survey indicates that enterprises have a good understanding of different types of Ethernet service configurations available in the market. Key findings from the survey include:

  •  While metro E-Line and E-LAN services continue to see widespread adoption, long haul E-Line circuits are seeing a faster rate of adoption in the market. This indicates a greater penetration of (and future demand for) intercity Ethernet services in the market today.
  • In terms of bandwidth adoption trends for E-Line services, small businesses indicated a preference for 2-10M and 11-100M, with medium and large businesses choosing 101M-1G speeds. However, the results for E-LAN services are different with all sizes of businesses showing a greater preference for 101M-1G—for both current and planned usage.
  • Ethernet access delivered over fiber is the most preferred type of Ethernet access; however, Ethernet over Copper (EoC) is not far behind, with 40 percent of current users indicating they use EoC access services.

Conclusions of this survey indicated the following:

  • Survey results indicate growing penetration of Carrier Ethernet services in enterprise WAN networks. More than 55 percent of the survey respondents indicated they currently use Ethernet services. More than 61 percent indicated they plan to use Ethernet services in the next 12-24 months.
  • The overall demand for Ethernet is expected to grow in the near future.
  • E-Line adoption trends, as indicated by this survey, confirm the growing demand for long haul E-Line circuits.
  • Leading Ethernet service providers have been making great progress in terms of their long haul Ethernet network expansion, and are well positioned to take advantage of the growth trends indicated by these survey results.
  • E-LAN adoption trends indicate that 23 percent of current Ethernet service users are using metro E-LAN service versus 15 percent using VPLS. However, future adoption trends indicate that 40 percent of respondents planning to use Ethernet will use metro E-LAN service versus just 17 percent choosing VPLS.
  • Enterprises prefer MPLS VPNs for connecting highly distributed locations.
  • However, for enterprises wanting to connect locations nationally or globally, MPLS VPN is a better option. MPLS VPNs offer better reach and the flexibility of using multiple access technologies (DSL, T1/T3, SONET, Waves, Wireless, and Satellite), which is critical for enterprises wanting to connect thousands of locations where Ethernet is not ubiquitous.
  • Ethernet VPLS, by its very nature, requires Ethernet access at all locations.
  • Ethernet access delivered over fiber networks is the most widely used service, currently. However, Ethernet overCopper is gaining significant traction. This should make Ethernet providers that have invested in expanding their EoC networks in the past few years happy as not only is the demand for the service increasing, but some respondents indicated they would choose a higher bandwidth profile (51-100M) on EoC. This is a deviation from the typical 10M or lower speeds adopted on EoC in the past.

 

Filed Under: Industry Surveys, International Networks, Uncategorized, VPLS

Troubleshooting VPLS and Ethernet Tunnels over MPLS

July 30, 2012 by Leave a Comment

LSP ping has limited efficiency in troubleshooting both VPLS and point-to-point Ethernet tunnels over MPLS. There are a number of reasons:

1. Ethernet P2P or VPLS is implemented on an additional layer over the LSP; and that is referenced as a psuedowire or Martini tunnel.This additional layer has its own headers and ID. In addition, the psuedowire has its own signaling procedure that should take place over the LSP. The mapping between a pseudowire and a LSP is not necessarily one-to-one: multiple psuedowires can ride the same LSP. The LSP might be up and passing traffic for some psuedowires but not the others. Many reasons can lead to this, for example an MTU mismatch on the psuedowire end-points on the ports facing the customer. In such case the LSP ping will succeed while the psuedowire is down and hence the customer service frames cannot get through. For this reason, some vendors (such as Cisco) came up with an additional “ping” that operates on the psuedowire level.. In this ping a user can specify the individual psudowire ID on which the ping traffic rides. This is a good solution for the problem however it has its own limitations [described in 2 below]

2. Since the pseudowire (and its underlying LSP) are implemented over MPLS, then the scope/reach of both pseuedowire and LSP ping tools in troubleshooting an Ethernet service is limited to the provider edge devices (where MPLS terminates). This means it does not include the access tail circuits (the local loops) all the way to the customer CPE. These access tails are more likely to fail than a provider’s MPLS backbone.

3. Hence, Ethernet Service OAM (SOAM) can provide better troubleshooting techniques. that is achieved by the loopback request/reply LBM/LBR (AKA Ethernet or CFM ping) and LTM/LTR (CFM link trace request/reply). Ethernet loopback and link trace are very useful in troubleshooting Ethernet services since they can cover the end-to-end service and they are guaranteed to ride the exact tunnel carrying the customer service frames. a LBM or LTM that is sent on an UP MEP covers the provider backbone (whether MPLS or any other encapsulation); likewise a LBM or LTM that is sent on a DOWN MEP cover the access tail circuit all the way to the end customer CPE.

4. Another advantage for SOAM is that Y.1731 can provide service and SLA assurance through its Delay Measurement Message/Reply (DMM/DMR). frame delay, and frame delay variation measurements are provided. a DMM/DMR pair can verify not only the continuty of the service but also the compliance to the SLA.

5. One carrier that has excellent troubleshooting tools that it puts in its customers’ hands at no charge is Inteliquent. Their EtherVision web tools implement all the mentioned techniques: MPLS PW ping, SOAM LBM/LBR, SOAM LTM/LTR, and DMM/DMR. All these tools and techniques are available on their EtherVision web portal so that customers can continuously monitor the continuity and performance of their services.

If you need consulting services to troubleshoot or design your network, contact us!

 

Filed Under: Troubleshooting MPLS Networks, VPLS Tagged With:

Bandwidth Demand for International Circuits Grows by 45%

July 18, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Data from TeleGeography’s Global Bandwidth Research Service reveal that demand for international bandwidth grew 45 percent in 2011, and at a compounded rate of 57 percent annually between 2007 and 2011. Although growth has slowed since 2008, when network capacity increased nearly 70 percent, the pace remains brisk, with aggregate capacity requirements more than doubling every two years.

The rate of growth varies widely by region, and has been fastest on links to less-developed regions. Between 2007 and 2011, international bandwidth usage in the Middle East grew at a compounded rate of 98 percent annually, from 148 Gbps to 2.3 Tbps. Over the same time period, Africa’s international bandwidth usage increased 85 percent annually, to 677 Gbps, and Latin America’s international bandwidth usage grew 71 percent, to 5.6 Tbps.

International Bandwidth Growth Used by Region, 2007-2011

International bandwidth requirements in Asia and Europe grew at a compounded rate of more than 55 percent between 2007 and 2011, while international bandwidth demand in North America and Oceania grew 47 percent. Although international bandwidth usage growth is slower in these mature markets, their capacity requirements are far larger than those of emerging markets. North America’s international bandwidth usage is nearly 10 times greater than that of the entire Middle East, while used capacity connected to Norway is greater than that connected to all of the countries in Africa.

Broadband subscriber growth is the primary driver of bandwidth demand in the Middle East and Africa, where the number of subscribers grew from 9.4 million to 19.4 million between 2007 and 2011, and in Asia, where broadband subscriptions doubled to 250 million over the same period. While broadband subscriber growth has slowed in Latin America, Europe, and North America, bandwidth demand in these regions has been fueled by increases in average broadband access speeds, enabling more frequent use of high-bandwidth applications such as video.

Filed Under: Industry Surveys, International Networks, International Private Leased Circuit - IPLC, Uncategorized, VPLS

Ethernet or VPLS for your WAN

June 20, 2012 by Leave a Comment

We all use Ethernet as the network protocol of choice for our local area networks. For wide area networks, or WANS,  the choices today have been Frame Relay, ATM and MPLS.

With Ethernet advantages like efficiency and low cost, carriers and users have embraced it as the future of the WAN. WAN speeds using Ethernet are currently into the multiple gigabits per second range and increasing. But if your organization has traditionally used non-Ethernet WAN services, how do you decide if a migration makes sense?   Here are some of the advantages and disadvantages of Ethernet for your WAN.

The evolution of Ethernet and WAN connectivity

While MPLS  is widespread, Ethernet penetration of the WAN market has been growing  in recent years. Even with dramatically cheaper prices for T-1 channels (i.e., $150 to $400 per month), the costs for Ethernet WAN service are very favorable (as little as $5 per megabyte, compared to T-1 at $200 to $300 per megabyte). The rapid acceptance of 10 Gigabit Ethernet  service is a testament to Ethernet’s acceptance by the WAN and metropolitan area network communities. In reality, it’s likely Ethernet and MPLS will coexist and become increasingly difficult to decide between.

Ethernet versus MPLS versus others

Virtual private networks and their routing protocols can be managed two ways: by you or your carrier. In either case, the protocol of choice has been MPLS, as it can be used either at Layer 2 (where you control the routing) or Layer 3 (where carriers control the routing). By contrast, Ethernet is a Layer 2 protocol that gives users (and carriers if they are providing the service) routing control.

Ethernet advantages – Bandwidth

There are many advantages to Ethernet WAN protocols assuming high-speed (10 GbE and 100 GbE). For example, if your organization has several buildings or sites connected in a campus or metropolitan area, 10 GbE can be a cost-effective way to link these sites. This is because 10 GbE is a full-duplex protocol and is fully compatible with any Ethernet-based network. The 10 GbE standard, which also supports single-mode and multi-mode fiber systems, is expected to be compatible with twisted-pair copper, and can connect to  SONET and SDH wide area networks. An all-Ethernet infrastructure greatly simplifies the entire network management process, because every device uses essentially the same protocol to communicate. By contrast, situations where multiple protocols coexist in the WAN mean that network management and diagnostic systems must be compatible with all protocols in use for network administrators to analyze network performance. The ultimate Ethernet advantage is high-speed, low-latency end-to-end communications.

Ethernet advantages – Speed

For most users, the 10 GbE standard will probably be entirely sufficient for most WAN and MAN applications, but very large users with heavy bandwidth and low latency requirements should find the 40 or 100 GbE standard worth considering.

Decision criteria for Ethernet on WANs

When examining other Ethernet or VPLS  advantages and disadvantages for WAN connectivity, consider the following:

  • Analyze costs, performance, latency, reliability, technical support and security.
    • analyze your network performance data and compare it with your test of Ethernet performance data;
    • research vendor and carrier experience; or
    • retain an experienced network consultancy, like MPLS-Experts to provide an analysis.
  • Determine your medium- and longer-term demands for bandwidth, throughput and latency, and analyze them against your current WAN infrastructure. Will the current WAN be sufficient? How easy/difficult/costly will it be to boost WAN performance?
  • How important is it to have an all-Ethernet infrastructure from cost/benefit and performance perspectives versus your current mixed-protocol environment?
  • How important is it for your WAN to link to other organizations, like subsidiaries or supply chain members, and will a difference in network protocols affect your organization’s business operations?
Filed Under: Uncategorized, VPLS Tagged With: , , ,

Tata Communications has launched a low latency Global Ethernet network

June 14, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Submarine cable landing in Asia

Today, Tata Communications has launched a low latency network to connect financial trading capitals in Asia, the US and the UK.

The company claims the development is the industry’s first global low latency network, offering a multipoint Ethernet platform for the financial services sector.

John Hoffman, head of Ethernet product management at the company said it is likely other global companies will make similar developments, offering multipoint solutions, if the network proves successful.

“You may now start to see more purpose-built networks created because it gives financial trading companies an option on which cable they would like to purchase capacity on,” he said. “We recognize that while we have the largest global cable network in the world, there is also a big requirement for the fastest network – and that is the basis behind such investment.”

Hoffman heralded the development as part of a new strategy from Tata, and claims it allows customers to work with a single global supplier instead of multiple country specific point-to-point network providers.

He said he believes this could serve as a better approach to low latency trading because investments often get dated with new and emerging technologies. “It is very difficult in this scenario to make large long-term investments into a single cable, because you are never sure when a faster cable is going to be built,” he said. “We didn’t want to make that single cable investment because that investment is ultimately wasted in the end – we are aiming to provide flexibility and resiliency.”

Tata confirmed to Capacity this was only phase one of its low latency project. The company aims to bring low latency connectivity in its home market India and in South Africa, where it owns a majority share in operator Neotel. This is part of a long-running strategy to tap in to other emerging markets. “We look to get into locations where there is less competition and we have a better chance of winning business,” added Hoffman.

Readers should note that this technology is available to all companies interested in low latency communication.  The key is the utilization of the most direct cable path across the globe.

Filed Under: Carriers Offering MPLS, International Networks, VPLS Tagged With: , ,

International Capacity Price Drop to Affect Global Network Prices

May 23, 2012 by Leave a Comment

When pricing a global MPLS or VPLS wide area cable network, the cost of international bandwidth has a dramatic effect on the pricing of circuits.  This is why connectivity to Asia or South America is so much more expensive that domestic circuits in the USA or circuits from the USA to Europe.  TeleGeography is a research company that compiles all this pricing data, in addition to offering some wonderful maps.

A recent wave of new submarine cable builds and upgrades to existing cable systems has brought an influx of submarine cable capacity to many historically high cost markets, including Africa, the Middle East, Southern Asia, and Latin America. Nevertheless, new data from TeleGeography show that vast regional disparities persist in both price levels and rates of decline.

New cable builds in Asia have greatly increased both supply and competition in the region, driving down prices. Median lease prices for a 10 Gbps wavelength between Los Angeles and Tokyo fell 35 percent between Q1 2011 and Q1 2012, and at a compounded rate of 33 percent between Q1 2009 and Q1 2012. Prices of 10 Gbps wavelengths between Hong Kong and Singapore fell 10 percent between Q1 2011 and Q1 2012, to $43,935 per month, and declined at a compounded 31 percent annually between Q1 2009 and Q1 2012.

Navigating the procurement of a global MPLS network is complicated unless you do this work on a daily basis, since you don’t have benchmark pricing or insight into all the global cable system.  Using MPLS-Experts to manage this process can not only save you money, but reduce the the time required to manage this process.  In many cases, we have been able to provide twice the bandwidth the customer would have obtained if they managed the process on their own.  To learn more,  visit this link or contact us.

Filed Under: Get MPLS Price Quote, Network FAQs, Quotation Thoughts, Uncategorized, VPLS Tagged With: , ,
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