My TN Connection

The folks at Light Reading put on another successful Ethernet Expo in New York earlier this week. The show did a great job of highlighting the opportunities and challenges faced by Service Providers and hardware manufacturers as we all work to keep up with the demand and growth in the Carrier Ethernet space.

With Ethernet-based applications like voice over IP (VOIP), IP/MPLS VPN access, interactive video, internet access, and storage area networks it’s no wonder that 90 percent of service provider worldwide will be offering some form of Ethernet connectivity in the next three years.

Here were some key issues I took away from this year’s conference:

• Scalable bandwidth and service convergence: As IPTV, VoIP, internet access, etc all are converging into one service offering, bandwidth necessities are forefront on everyone’s agenda.

• Importance of interconnecting between carriers becoming prominent as many carriers are having to partner with other carriers to get Ethernet to the premise.

• Service Level Agreements (SLA) and end-to-end OAM are now significant factors as customers want assurance they’re getting what they’re paying for and service providers strive for better service management.

• Interoperability among hardware vendors and service providers increasingly important as different segments of the end-to-end connection are brought together.

During the Industry Update done by the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF), Carrier Ethernet was defined as:

• Standardized Services
• Scalability
• Reliability
• QoS
• Service Management

I thought that was also a good summary of the main issues discussed as the conference.

If you’re interested, here are a couple of blog posts from the folks over at Light Reading related to the conference:

• 100 GigE Again
• An Ethernet Expo Rundown

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