Networking

Networking@Wire Speed

The network plays a crucial role connecting end users to middleware, services, applications, and servers. Adding intelligence to the network has enabled applications and services to operate more efficiently and streamlined operational efficiency. By Dominic K

Networks today are expected to offer increased and diverse functionality as organisations demand scalable infrastructure that lets them integrate complex upcoming technologies and support fresh business applications. The never ending stream of threats from hackers and their malware spawn as well as the escalating cost of system integration are other imperatives. Organisations are finding ways to increase the agility needed to respond to and capitalise on market changes, while cutting costs.

2006: The year that was

Networks which were set up three to four years ago were set up when options and resources were limited. When it came to bandwidth, companies were stuck with either a 64 Kbps or a 2 Mbps link with nothing in between. With the advent of technologies such as MPLS and with the influx of multiple service providers, organisations are attempting to derive the best from these changes.

Kiran Bhagwanani, VP, APAC, Sales, HCL Comnet says, “In 2006 application availability and performance, as opposed to ‘uptime’, became the biggest concern for organisations. The infrastructure is now expected to support applications that grow in number and complexity while bringing about consistency and predictability in end user response and performance.”

He adds, “We saw organisations diminish the difference that they perceived between network and application performance; consequently, a quality end user experience and manageability have become the industry’s new mantras.”

Sanjeev Gupta - Linksys Regional Sales Director, Asia Pacific says, “2006 was an interesting year in terms of the uptake of wireless technology in India. Traditionally, it has been the upwardly mobile young professionals and small offices that have adopted this technology. By end 2006, improving broadband availability, bandwidth and lower equipment cost had resulted in the growth of this trend.”

Michel Susai, Founder Chairman and CEO, NeoAccel elaborates on the technological developments in the preceding year. “Some major developments in 2006 included the sophistication of security breaches in enterprise networks, the growth of voice over IP, and the explosion of video over the Internet due to sites such as YouTube. Security features in networking equipment will have to be maintained one step ahead of techniques adopted for security breaches; routers, and other networking equipment, must continue refining support for voice and Internet data and bandwidth will have to further grow to support the needs of delivering video to enterprises and homes.”

2006 saw increased pressure on CIOs to cut costs, amidst the emergence of new, bandwidth-hungry applications and amplified performance demands.

Outsourcing network management

Network management is no longer limited to just transport or maintenance, but has graduated to network applications being managed for customer organisations. Applications such as hosted mail, shared mail and other hosted and shared applications are already becoming a part of network management. As this is likely to increase the scope of work for existing service providers, we expect to see an overlap in services provided by different IT and telecom vendors in the future.

Avnish Datt, Country Manager, Orange Business Services, India says, “In 2006, we saw a rapid increase in out-tasking of network management amongst global organisations. This has helped companies stay abreast of cutting edge technologies and applications. As a consequence of this, there has been an increase in the scope of network management out-tasking. This has also been correctly identified by analyst firms who confirm that telcos are increasingly competing with IT service companies in providing networked applications.”

For a company to deploy a network management solution, the basic requirement is the availability of bandwidth, and if a company cannot provide that itself, it can outsource it to solution providers as these providers specialise in managing networks for others. Bandwidth can also be taken on a rental basis. Not only bandwidth, the entire activity of network management can be outsourced. Companies in India have already started doing these things.

From fault management the focus is shifting to performance management as companies mature enough to analyse how well their services are managed. Large enterprises are adopting network management solutions as rapid growth is putting pressure on their networks.

The major driver is service uptime. If you lease bandwidth you want it to be available to you all of the time, hence quality of service becomes a key issue when you talk of factors affecting network management. Security is an issue but service is more important. One does not want 90 percent service.

There are many factors that affect and drive the network management market. Organisations look for reliability and a smoothly-managed secure network is something that all companies desire. Companies want network uptime and safe communication 24 x 7. If there is a deterioration in service, companies shift vendors.

Organisations across verticals want to leverage their existing infrastructure and investment as they incorporate applications such as voice, video and other multimedia content.  Products enabling organisations to converge data, voice, video and other content onto a single network are increasingly in demand. This is mostly due to a converged network’s ability to drastically cut costs and increase flexibility, but with all this the flip side is that the deployment of converged networks comes with the additional challenge of ensuring transparency and manageability.

The analyst take

Gartner and IDC predict that by 2009-10, companies in India will be employing IP as the backbone of their business infrastructure. That will mean a huge opportunity in network convergence.

A study conducted by IDC revealed that sales of IP telephony equipment will overtake those of traditional equipment in the Asia-Pacific region in 2007. The countries where this will happen include India, Philippines and Indonesia. By 2010, China and India will overtake Australia in IP telephony sales.

A major wave of IT investments has begun across banks, financial services institutions, telecom, manufacturing, government and education, IDC said in its report on “India Domestic IT market Top 10 Predictions for 2007.” This is probably why India registered the fastest growth when it came to IT spending in 2006 with a 22.4 percent upswing and is forecasted to hold this position in 2007 with 21.5 percent growth to reach Rs 75,891 crore.

In 2007, Indian enterprises would graduate to the second level of dynamic IT infrastructure, where IT infrastructure would be able to change in response to shifts in the business scenario, the report stated. Here again the key technology components that would come to the fore would be virtualisation, SOA and application integration.

2006: Business and Technology

It is a well accepted fact that today’s enterprise requires an IT strategy that will not only improve its ability to respond to competitive pressures and market demands but also accelerate business growth. The network connects every single part of the IT infrastructure, from servers to applications, middleware, and end points.

Ranajoy Punja, VP-Business Development, Advanced Technologies, Cisco India & SAARC says “The network has the potential to improve the performance and functionality of every element of the IT environment and bring benefits to all organisations and people within the enterprise. More intelligence has been added to the network which is becoming a platform of Service Oriented Network Architecture.”

Bhagwanani says, “IT budgets have been stabilising, leading to increased pressure to squeeze the maximum performance out of the existing network resources. The demand for quality connectivity has increased as a wider variety of work gets outsourced to India. We saw the beginning of the revamping of legacy networks from leased lines to MPLS and from old Ethernet standards to Fast Ethernet and even Gigabit Ethernet. This trend is expected to continue in 2007.  

Wireless usage is driven by broadband access. Gupta says, “Our expansion and penetration, especially in B and C class cities, still significantly depends on the availability of an Internet connection. As broadband makes headway in India, we are positive that wireless equipment will become a fast seller in the country.”

According to the TRAI, broadband connections have continued to grow steadily. At the end of October 2006, total broadband connections in the country had reached 1.92 million an addition of 0.10 million over the previous month. In fact the month on month growth rate as compared to last year has increased substantially.

Multi-function routers

Multi-function routers or Integrated Services Routers (ISR) provide more than simple routing. These routers have the capability to offer security, voice and wireless in a single box. The amount of functionality in a multi-function router depends on the size and target application of the router. Routers employed by service providers and large enterprises, because of their capacity and high-availability requirements, will tend to be single-function devices. Small enterprises are the ones deploying multi-function routers on account of their lack of resources. Integrated Services Routers make the deployment of multiple devices redundant and hence lead to huge savings. These devices are usually very flexible to configure and easy to deploy.

Additionally, given the boom in the Indian telecom space, carrier class routers with the capability to handle and route data in terabits will be piloted and deployed. With large telecom players attempting to differentiate themselves, gigabit and terabit routers are expected to gain popularity among Indian customers.

Punja says, “In the last year, we have seen many telecom majors expand their backbone network with core routers. Also with their broadband initiatives underway, vendors are offering a new category of ‘broadband routers’ to service providers.”

Routers have matured over the years and have become an intelligent network device. They now have the capability to integrate features such as content processing, VPNs, firewalls and load balancing. Wireless capabilities are also becoming popular, doing away with the need for separate wireless access points for small office networks. Customers are realising that they can get a lower TCO by deploying these routers as compared to deploying multiple devices. Due to the inherent architecture of these devices, it is easier to add new services, most of which just need a minor software or licence upgrade. Meanwhile, switches are packing more punch with greater processing speed.

Gigabit switches

Today switches sport myriad features in addition to high processing speeds with gigabit switches being the buzzword. These LAN switches are an order of magnitude faster than the existing 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet LAN switches that have been in use for the past decade.

These devices transmit Ethernet packets at a speed of 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps). Today, switches that transmit at 10 Gbps are also available. Industry bodies such as IEEE are also working on a 100 Gbps standard which will be a thousand times faster than today’s prevalent Fast Ethernet.

Both Gigabit Ethernet and 10 G Ethernet can be implemented over optical fibre or copper cabling, with the latter generally used for shorter distances. Gigabit switches are becoming increasingly common and several mass produced client devices have begun to feature support for Gigabit Ethernet. However, the market for 10 G is still raw and it is presently deployed only for critical high-capacity backbone links and data centre connectivity.

As service providers look to offer broadband based services through the creation of metro Ethernet networks, the adoption of gigabit switches is rising. These switches are being increasingly deployed in campus networks, and 10 G is being used for the backbone. As service providers roll out their broadband networks, the adoption of 10 Gigabit switches is expected to grow. This is helping service providers deliver a profitable and differentiated metro Ethernet service that works in conjunction with their switching infrastructure.

In addition, technologies such as Network Admission Control (NAC) permit greater integration between the switches and end points. NAC also checks desktops against a defined policy and allows non-compliant PCs to be moved to an isolated remediation zone so that the required patches and updates can be applied.

Susai explains “To protect enterprises from within, a new solution is required. Network Address Control (NAC) is that solution and it will change the face of network security. It is an intelligent network infrastructure that can identify users, identify and do integrity checks on the computers that they are using, and then grant access to specific locations and resources and set policies based on user and machine identity. This market will grow to $3.9 billion by 2008.”

Its advantages are that no user will be able to access the internal enterprise network unless it has met the company’s security policies. The disadvantage is that the initial investment to deploy them within the enterprise might be high.

IP VPN

Multinational enterprises usually have two choices for their communication needs—the creation of a private network using leased lines, or the use of the broader public Internet. The first option is secure but expensive, while the second offers inexpensive access, but brings with it potential security problems. IP-enabled Virtual Private Networks (IP VPNs) offer the advantages of both options—multinationals can enjoy the security of a private network using access control and encryption, while taking advantage of the economies of scale and management capabilities of large public networks.

Yogesh Sharma, Vice President of Sales, Huawei 3 Com, India says, “Companies should replace permanent WAN links with IP VPN virtual circuits to gain a competitive advantage.”

Wireless networks

On the technology front, the merger of Wi-Fi with VoIP is an area that will see growth. VoWiFi or Voice over Wireless Fidelity is a Wi-Fi based VoIP service or, to put it in another way, a wireless VoIP system. Whereas VoIP consists of the hardware and software that enables people to use the Internet as a transmission medium to make calls, VoWiFi is the wireless version of this technology that is designed to work on wireless devices such as laptops and PDAs.

“Along with the added benefits that it brings to businesses and to those with a need for wireless communication, VoWiFi opens up the door for a whole new market of consumer products such as a standalone VoWiFi handheld,” says Punja.

Susai says “With the cost of Gigabit Ethernet interfaces plummeting, the standard use of Gigabit network interfaces on notebook computers, and the explosive use of streaming media within the LAN, Gigabit Ethernet has taken over from 100 Mbps Ethernet as the de facto LAN switch interface. As a result, Gigabit switches are now being used in smaller and smaller market segments, down to the level of home networking. IP VPN is a mature networking technology and it has not changed much, other than continuing to make its way into multi-function routers and security devices such as UTM appliances.”

Wireless networks especially at the consumer-level, are growing at an extremely rapid pace and are in the process of moving to the newer, but not-yet ratified, 802.11n standard.

With regards to IP VPN, Quality of Service (QoS) solutions are enabling organisations to reap the benefits of a converged network while maintaining highly-secure and protected networks. Tunnelled VPNs are expected to give way to ‘Tunnel-less VPNs’ a more efficient way to encrypt and transfer data using technologies such as Cisco’s Group Encrypted Transport.  

A scenario where last-mile connectivity for WANs will be wireless seems likely. WiMAX trials are already underway and the industry is attempting to establish the feasibility of broadband services over WiMAX.

Within the enterprise WLAN, devices such as PDAs and smartphones with integrated WLAN capabilities are allowing users to use the same device while in the office and on the road.

“Increased adoption of Power over Ethernet (PoE) and bandwidth heavy applications such as video are spurring the growth of structured cabling in India. We see a migration from Cat5 cabling to Cat6 and hopefully, even Cat7,” says Bhagwanani.

Expectations for 2007

The booming network and communications market is propelling the growth of the routing and switching markets in India. Banking, Financial services and Insurance (BFSI), government, ITeS and telecom service providers, will remain key adopters in the market. SMBs, having crested the first wave of networking, will start adopting storage solutions. Additionally, spending from the SMB segment on integrated security appliances will also grow steadily.

Tushar Sighat, Vice President, Channel Business. D-Link India says, “2007 will see a lot of gigabit switch deployments taking place. As major business segments in India are getting into an organised mode we will see a lot of small and medium businesses getting organised in 2007. This will fuel the IT deployments in the SMB segment and it will continue to be a major growth segment. The major challenges will be in terms of creating awareness for new technologies to the customer and training partners vis-a-vis deployment. 2007 will see a lot of events focusing on these two areas.”

Sharma elaborates “The huge rate of information technology churn means that every new application is built on a different mix of technologies, and re-engineering last year’s application to use this year’s technology is too risky and expensive, so users are forced to make the resulting mismatched collection of systems work together somehow. As a result, IT costs eat up an ever-larger proportion of a business’ running costs for an ever-decreasing return.”

Some challenges in 2006 were data protection and security and 2007 finds enterprises looking at data centre consolidation on the storage front as also WAN link optimisation.

“2007 will see a high level of adoption of wireless networking in the SMB segment,” says Gupta.

“Vendors will experiment with new models such as on-premise hosted applications, hardware on lease and Software as a Service (SaaS). Major application vendors such as SAP, Oracle and Microsoft will expand their SaaS offerings with a broader range of applications and greater scalability, setting the stage for more partners delivering complementary solutions via the SaaS model. SMBs will contribute about 50 percent to the enterprise application market in 2007 in India,” says Sharma.

As for home networking, the concept is gaining steam in India and although there are no numbers to quantify the market the basic level of Internet sharing through the use of wireless routers has already taken root. There are of course some futuristic technologies on the horizon as well. These include adapters that will help your computer to connect wirelessly with a digital projector and a gaming adapter that allows children to make a wireless connection from a gaming console to a PC.

Enterprises will expect converged and wireless networks with greater performance management. Bandwidth costs are expected to drop further but bandwidth-gorging applications will proliferate. The impetus will be on application availability and network visibility and manageability.

“Small businesses are adopting converged networks for reasons of flexibility and cost. Small and medium businesses will expect to benefit from greater power and wider functionality of switches and integrated services routers. We expect rapid wireless adoption by SMBs driven by new age start-up organisations that rely on knowledge workers to deliver their services,” says Bhagwanani.

The deployment of WiMAX and Metro Ethernet networks will change home networking and Internet access drastically. “We are already witnessing moves by several Indian states towards high-bandwidth networks, such as the Gujarat State Wide Area Network and the Goa Broadband Network,” he adds.

2006 saw small offices getting routing, wireless, voice and security in one box. Unified ommunications and the like have already begun putting pressure on bandwidth and contributing to ease of management. Organisations are likely to respond in 2007 by rolling out solutions that give them a sense of control over their complex infrastructures.

Datt says, “With global communications companies working towards the deployment of next generation networks using MPLS and IP technologies, networking infrastructure is set to get a boost. Virtualisation is another area that has seen significant adoption among organisations with IP-VPNs providing employees the flexibility of being mobile anywhere and everywhere. We have the largest MPLS based IP-VPN in the world that supports 3,750 organisations.”