InformationWeek
Defining The Business Value Of Technology
October 19, 1998
Big Pipes: Better Options?
Users face a choice as they weigh new bandwidth offerings: Do they combine voice and data, or keep them separate?
By Monua Janah, with Mary E. Thyfault and Beth Davis
ompanies with a need for more network bandwidth will soon find a variety of new switches and services that promise faster, smarter network connections at lower prices. The offerings should help businesses keep up with the crush of data being generated by E-mail, groupware, enterprise applications, remote employees, Web access, and electronic commerce. But technology managers are faced with a choice as they weigh the options: Is it better to combine voice and data over the same network infrastructure, or keep them separate?"Our demand for bandwidth is being driven by business initiatives requiring the development and deployment of new applications," says Terry Dymek, director of infrastructure design at John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Co. in Boston. These applications include sales-force automation and Web-based self-service capabilities for employees.
Eventually John Hancock may implement voice, data, and video over an IP network, which would fuel demand for even more bandwidth, Dymek says. Several vendors last week revealed alliances and acquisitions that will promote products and services for combining voice, data, and multimedia traffic over a single network.
Network equipment suppliers are releasing routing switches that combine huge switching capacity with some of the intelligence of routers. 3Com Corp. last week started selling an Ethernet version of its CoreBuilder 9000, a monster LAN switch with a backplane that will scale up to 560 Gbps of switching capacity, while Foundry Networks Inc. unveiled a routing switch and additional routing capabilities for its high- and low-end switches.
Customers say they can use as much cheap bandwidth as vendors can provide. "The demand for bandwidth-hungry applications is high," says Neil Flynn, director of telecommunications and technology for Florida Power & Light Co. in Miami, which is putting in a new network infrastructure to accommodate applications such as the delivery of training videos to employees' desktops.
This week, Lucent Technologies will launch data-network switches that integrate products from its various acquisitions under the Lucent Cajun Campus brand. And Nexabit Networks Inc., which makes next-generation terabit routers, this week will form an alliance with Hitachi to support up to 16 interfaces for its router, each running at 9.6 Gbps. Devices such as Nexabit's are intended to replace the current generation of routers in the Internet, which are being pushed to their limits as traffic increases.
Meanwhile, an industry group last week moved closer to approving a standard to support faster network transmissions. The High-Performance Networking Forum, which includes server vendors and research groups, demonstrated Gigabyte System Networking, which is meant to link large servers at high speeds. The copper interface supports transmissions of up to 1 Gbps over 40 meters. A draft standard for GSN has reached final balloting, according to the forum, whose members include Compaq, Silicon Graphics, Sun Microsystems, Los Alamos National Laboratories, and the European Center for Nuclear Research.
Lowering Costs
Cheaper network connectivity can help run a distributed application more efficiently--and rein in hardware costs. 3Com's CoreBuilder 9000 provides higher performance for LANs than traditional routers do, says Bob Gohn, marketing director for 3Com's Ethernet campus solution. The CoreBuilder 9000 supports 126 Gigabit Ethernet ports and 504 Fast Ethernet ports; its base price starts at $35,800.
The National Institutes of Health has been using a CoreBuilder 9000 for the past two months to power an innovative computer cluster. The 3Com device is connected to 16 PCs, each with two Pentium Pro processors, which run a custom application that simulates the interaction of atoms in biological molecules. "We can assemble PCs, and with a high-speed network get as much performance as we would with any big superboxes," says Dr. Eric Billings, a staff scientist at the NIH, in Bethesda, Md. So far, he says, the CoreBuilder has run without any problems. The NIH plans to eventually increase the number of clustered PCs to 64 or more.
The CoreBuilder 9000's Gigabit Ethernet connectivity lets the NIH build these larger clusters, Billings says. "When you try to do supercomputing, the faster your network is, the larger the computer cluster you can build," he says.
Customers say the extra bandwidth and network intelligence are needed. But they are less enthusiastic about combining voice, data, and video over IP networks--an idea being pursued by vendors ranging from telecommunications equipment companies to the data-networking giants. Major vendors are pairing up through acquisitions and alliances to prepare for this all-IP world.
Alcatel, the French telecom company, said last week it would pay $315 million to buy Packet Engines Inc., a maker of Gigabit Ethernet routing switches. Cisco Systems Inc., the leader in data networking, agreed to acquire Selsius Systems Inc., a maker of PBX systems for telephony over IP, for $145 million. Cisco also revealed an agreement with AT&T under which Cisco will recruit resellers to sell AT&T's IP services. The first set of services will be AT&T WorldNet Managed Internet service, which provides simple Internet access for small and midsize businesses.
Nortel Networks Inc., the combined Nortel-Bay Networks entity, this week will unveil a strategy and products that integrate voice and data. Two other companies--RateXchange and MinX.com--just rolled out bandwidth exchange services that let telecom carriers sell each other voice-over-IP bandwidth.
The IP Push
With its acquisition, Alcatel is hoping to offer the Packet Engines' LAN products as a complement to its telecom gear, to be sold to large companies, carriers, and Internet service providers. It also wants to develop combined voice-data products using Packet Engines' IP-based technologies.
"If you're a traditional telecom supplier, you have no choice but to get into IP," says Dave Passmore, president of NetReference Inc., a network consulting firm. "The entire carrier infrastructure is converting to IP. It won't be too many years before 90% of all traffic over carrier networks will be IP." Passmore estimates that data networking is growing at double- or triple-digit rates each year, while voice traffic is growing in the single digits.
Data-network suppliers such as Cisco are also preparing to compete with the likes of Alcatel, Lucent, and Nortel by adding voice and video capabilities, analysts say.
Some customers are eager to realize the benefits of combined voice-data-video networking. "For the first time in the 20 years, there's a real possibility that it's going to occur," says Douglas Field, VP of telecom at United Parcel Service in Atlanta. "I'm seeing an increased demand for information across our employee base. That's driving increased demand for bandwidth as people become more and more collaborative in their information sharing."
Florida Power & Light is pleased with the Nortel-Bay merger because the utility is implementing a WAN using Nortel ATM gear and is deploying a switched LAN using Bay products. The utility now has one vendor for all its data-networking needs, says Neil Flynn.
Florida Power & Light plans to integrate voice and data over ATM, which is the only technology that can run voice, video, and data reliably over a single line, Flynn says. ATM provides built-in quality-of-service bandwidth prioritization and guarantee capabilities. Next year, the utility will implement Nortel's integrated messaging service, letting users receive faxes at their desktops.
But for other users, obstacles to combining voice and data range from inadequate security and quality-of-service mechanisms for IP to staff issues. Quality of service has become a big issue as companies deploy more applications that compete for existing network bandwidth. With voice applications, unlike data applications, users don't tolerate latency or slow network response time.
Lack of network reliability is another concern keeping companies out of the convergence market, says Steve Miley, director of IS at Deckers Outdoor Corp., a manufacturer of outdoor apparel in Santa Barbara, Calif. "The phones always have to work," Miley says. "If the phones failed as much as computers, there would be problems."
Many IS managers don't see much business advantage in investing dollars and time in voice over IP. Deckers, for example, has one facility in Europe, as well as a data warehouse 60 miles south of its headquarters. Voice over IP makes sense for office-to-office communications, but the benefit wouldn't be that great, Miley says. Deckers' European office isn't working when the U.S. headquarters is--so, for now, E-mail works well.
| Read more about networking, see related story, "The Cost Of Networking." Visit our Networking Resource Center |
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