Ride the traffic tidal wave with Carrier Ethernet

Transport networks based on Carrier Ethernet will deliver the winning combination of increased capacity and assured quality of service.

 

With our vision that 5bn people will be connected by 2015, it is clear that a mammoth increase in network traffic is heading our way. And people will expect more from their communications than ever before. More bandwidthhungry services will evolve, while services like video-on-demand and Voice over IP require guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS). Transforming transport networks to meet the 100-fold traffic growth requires some hard thinking.

More capacity and quality needed

"In mobile access, data traffic will be increasingly backhauled by packet aggregation networks, with all traffic, including voice, eventually going through the packet domain," explains Annette Geuther, Head of Sales IP Transport, Nokia Siemens Networks. "In fixed access, the transformation to IP DSLAM is fully under way. Aggregation networks follow with expanded packet handling capabilities in SDH/Sonet or as newly built overlay networks based on Carrier Ethernet. In all cases, metro-DWDM will increase the capacity of existing fiber."

Ethernet will be key in all network domains, says Geuther. Carrier Ethernet today offers the kind of carrier grade, high QoS, five-nines (99.999% availability) performance that telcos need. As a major supplier, Nokia Siemens Networks is embracing Carrier Ethernet, a fact underlined by its acquisition of Carrier Ethernet specialist Atrica in January 2008, consolidating its end-to-end capability.

Designed for the job

"Today, we already offer a real end-to-end Carrier Ethernet portfolio from the customer premises to the IP edge, including metro and metro core aggregation. Our portfolio was designed for the carrier market from the beginning and is supremely cost-effective," says Geuther.

The portfolio meets all the needs of service providers. All switches have redundancy and network protection built in at every level. Our enhanced Ethernet package delivers the QoS needed by effectively differentiating between the alternative types of service (best effort or real-time). Geuther continues: "As the next evolutionary step, we will launch our Carrier Ethernet Transport Solution. This has three key elements: control plane provisioned by network management system; end-to-end Eth/IP features throughout the complete portfolio; and multi-layer optimization to balance IP/Eth services and traffic between the various network layers.

This will enable service providers to scale up Ethernet domains cost-effectively. In addition, our best-in-class network management system makes operation, maintenance and administration easier and less costly. Furthermore the offloading of non-routed traffic from IP/MPLS routers to the Carrier Ethernet domain enables service providers to keep investment and operational costs to a minimum.

"We also recognize that some service providers prefer Layer 2 MPLS in the aggregation. It's a question of strategy and basic belief, however they also start to realize the complexity and scalability issues with the dynamic control plane," says Geuther. "We also pay attention to these customers, so we offer multi-protocol solutions to satisfy both segments of this market."

According to Geuther, the ultimate aim is to build a cost-effective end-to-end solution that will enable service providers to meet the challenge of increasing traffic. "IP Transport is central to the entire Nokia Siemens Networks portfolio. All our portfolio elements will provide the same Ethernet end-to-end functionalities, thus providing a one-stop-shop network solution across all domains."