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Metro Ethernet No Optical Illusion
April 23, 2004
By Kevin Reichard
Metro Ethernet has always been positioned as the next great thing in networking, eventually supplanting the lowly LAN as the logical networking technology, albeit on a much grander scale
But that future has not materialized — at least not yet, anyway. The emergence of Metro Ethernet as a marketable technology came at a bad time in the economy: Businesses turned conservative after 9/11 and were unwilling to make the considerable capital investments — routers, switches, wiring, and so on — needed to enable Metro Ethernet. That left many Metro Ethernet vendors in the lurch, and the optical-network industry accordingly scaled back.
Metro Ethernet has always been positioned as the next great thing in networking, eventually supplanting the lowly local-area network (LAN) as the logical networking technology, albeit on a much grander scale
“Metro Ethernet and optical networking is back in business. Today Metro Ethernet is a billion-dollar market worldwide, according to IDC, and is expected to reach $6.3 billion worldwide by 2008.
But that future has not materialized — at least not yet, anyway. The emergence of Metro Ethernet as a marketable technology came at a bad time in the economy: Businesses turned conservative after 9/11 and were unwilling to make the considerable capital investments — routers, switches, wiring, and so on — needed to enable Metro Ethernet. That left many Metro Ethernet vendors in the lurch, and the optical-network industry accordingly scaled back.
However, with municipal and business purse strings loosening of late, Metro Ethernet and optical networking is back in business. Today Metro Ethernet is a billion-dollar market worldwide, according to market-research firm IDC, and is expected to reach $6.3 billion worldwide by 2008. (The leading vendors, according to IDC: Cisco, Nortel, Extreme Networks and Lucent.) Metro Ethernet is now positioned as a replacement technology for older network technologies like frame relay, ATM services, and legacy SONET technology, providing the capability to provide Ethernet networking on a grand scale.
What is Metro Ethernet?
Basically, Metro Ethernet, as its name implies, allows for Ethernet services to be offered in a metropolitan area — a typical size is with a population of 1-2 million people and between 50,000 and 80,000 businesses. Proponents say Metro Ethernet is perfect for rapidly growing areas that need to scale packet-based services. It also offers a lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), which should make it attractive for carriers.
In one study commissioned by the Metro Ethernet Forum, Metro Ethernet technology was shown to reduce carrier operating expenses by 23 percent over three years in a typical metro area. "These savings were driven by service providers' capability to automate Ethernet operating processes and significantly reduce the number of truck rolls that service providers require," reported Metro Ethernet Forum officials in a summary of the study.
"The management systems of Ethernet networks can simplify the configuration of services," the study went on to say, "reducing the time to deliver services to customers. Once these services are in place, customer requests for greater bandwidth or additional services are accomplished via a quick software adjustment, versus a time-consuming and costly truck roll."
The next question is does Ethernet scale? That's where the complexity kicks in. It's one thing to set up a readily definable LAN and connect a bunch of computers, but when you adopt Metro Ethernet, you're turning it into a service, and a carrier needs to fully support a service. That's why the Metro Ethernet industry had adopting standards (such as Quality of Service standards) to ensure success. (One of the problems facing the Metro Ethernet industry in its early days was the lack of standards. It took until October 2003 for the first Metro Ethernet Server Standard to be ratified by the Metro Ethernet Forum.)
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