re: Cisco Beefs Up the EdgeSo, if you're a service provider, which do you pick: Having "carrier Ethernet" stretch from end to end in the network ... or saving some money with cheaper equipment at the customer edge?
Similar question: Do you really need the features of carrier Ethernet to be present at the very fringes of the network?
re: Cisco Beefs Up the EdgeI think it depends on the market you are trying to compete in and where you fit.
As an MEU looking to compete in the SMB space, launching an E-10 service to compete against business DSL and Cable is a good fit _if_ the building is already on-net. The benefits for the end user go on and on and the price is solid against competing products. Also, it allows us stop handing over 80% of DSL loops costs back to Bell and resell our own access to other ISPs to collect loop fees ourselves.
So hitting the SMB market with packages that include VOIP, Web Hosting, Firewall, VPN (all centrall managed without CPE) is attractive.
The other benefit for us is that we deployed cheap switches that supports vlan, 802.1p, rate-limiting, control-plane policing, broadcast suppression and single strand gbics. This saves us in the towntown core on fibre where multiple clients are in one building.
With all this said, the costs and pay back do not work with an expensive deployment of a 'carrier ethernet switch' with mpls built in. It's a very tough cost model if you add it all up - fibre, fibre splicing, ups, rack, BLA fees, switch... Again this depends on what space you are trying to tackle and the amount of users and density. Ottawa is not a huge city and the size of buildings aren't like those in Toronto or New York.
We see the MTU requirements as minimal - its a cheap service that the SMB want with services bolted on. VOIP and Storage are two prime examples. We will run multiple cat-5 cables (depending on the distance within the building) to the customer suite (port costs are so low it works in the cost model).
The idea moving forward is to plug these cheap switches running vlans into an MPLS core. If the client is an enterprise client requiring anyting over 10 or 100Mb than we will run individual pair of fibres directly to their suite to the 10Gig core.
First do you mean by "carrier Ethernet"?? - boxes that have carrier grade reliability capabilities, or - boxes that have carrier features, such as MPLS in the box and remote management.
If one delivers IPTV late to compete with Cable and Satellites, then one must deliver carrier grade reliability at a better price. The edge device then must be very reliable but cheap.
Their problem with this is that there are so many more (>30:1) edge devices as compared to 'core' devices in a network that a few dollars more for the edge device is much more significant. My personal proposal experience tells me that a carrier grade reliable box cost almost 1.5 to 2.0 times the price of the 'enterprise box'.
Thus the dilemma for carriers, how do they compete without high costs? I have contended for a long time that only a few have grasped that there is such a dilemma.
They can not afford to get press for unreliable service as people are already skeptical as to whether they can deliver service at all. And after all the POTS quality will also be the standard customers expect of them.
re: Cisco Beefs Up the EdgeGreat, now I can have the same buggy behavior end to end. No offense Cisco, I like what you do, but I want to have many more than one company in my network. This is scientific reliability. I am not building networks in Kentucky.
How does RiverSTONE keep getting mentioned by LightReading. Corporate credit cards?
re: Cisco Beefs Up the EdgeThis buggy behavior is the internet at your service today sir, so please explain yourself. hmmm are they not the only vendor which has 30% of the MEF cert products? Show me your F and J stamp.
re: Cisco Beefs Up the EdgeIn reality, there is only one "mainstream" vendor routing product that was designed for carrier class delivery of ethernet services. This is the TiMetra product from Alcatel (7x50 family). It was purpose built for carrier class ethernet. All the rest of these are either re-purposed L2/3 enterprise switches (Riverstone, Cisco) or core routers (Juniper) or BRAS routers (Juniper, Redback). Cisco should have bought them when they had the chance!
re: Cisco Beefs Up the EdgeActually I have a bunch of buddies from AT&T, and they say the Avici's are a ton more reliable than the cisco's, and they respond faster. But then the Avici is the core and doesn't change much, whereas cisco is the edge and does the complicated stuff i guess. And cisco has infinitely more customers to worry about, so it's not a surprise that Avici would focus on supporting ATT which is their biggest customer by far (and only real tier-1 as far as I can tell). From my perspective Avici's problem is they're the 3rd horse in a 2 horse race, and they only sell a core router when the other guys sell a whole network.
re: Cisco Beefs Up the EdgeCraig, For those more interrested in the various solutions I would recommend the archive of 'Ethernet Access' 10/27 webinar.
Similar question: Do you really need the features of carrier Ethernet to be present at the very fringes of the network?