Dual Cisco CCIE #18532 Security/R&S - George Morton, argues that by moving from high-end T1 MPLS-VPN services to DSL/Cable access services, a company's monthly network communications cost will be reduced.
At the same time, Morton believes with DSL/Cable services having up to 18Mbps of download availability, the move to cloud computing is more reasonable and will impact the entire IT business case for cloud computing.
Morton also reasons that by offering multiple paths to branches with download availability up to 18Mbps per circuit, you could move Active Directory, Exchange services, file sharing, digital training and database services over multiple links to the cloud, reducing both edge operating and network access services costs.
For those networks that require all Internet traffic to be managed at the data center, Morton says DSL/Cable with the Cisco 1811 makes sense.
Morton's design would route all requests over the DMVPN-mGRE. With download speeds of 18Mbps, Internet access at the branch would run faster than traditional T1 services. For those companies that need Quality of Service there are many options, multiple pipes with QoS for voice dedicated to one uplink and data services on the second link.
According to Morton, the end game is to evaluate DSL/Cable for all remote connections to the data center and headquarters. The savings he believes, will not only be on hardware and network services, but also the ability to expand data center options in order to reduce costs while increasing productivity in branches.
Finally, to make any progress in reducing T1 costs, Morton believes the following DSL/Cable myths need to be busted once and for all:
Myth 1: DSL and Cable are only for homes and small businesses, because they don't scale and aren't reliable.
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DSL and Cable are for the most part transmitted over fiber SONET rings like T1 service. Higher speed DSL and Cable require shorter loops than T1 and can be more reliable because of the shorter copper loops than traditional T1. |
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AT&T U-Verse is under 3,000 feet from the VSLAM. The VSLAM is serviced by fiber in a SONET ring. |
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Verizon is fiber to the building with FiOS. So you have fiber end-to-end. |
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Comcast and others are moving from the cable digital standard DOCSIS 2 to DOCSIS 3. With DOCSIS 3 the fiber like AT&T is in the neighborhood and co-axial cable is used for the last mile to the building. |
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If you choose two providers to bond up stream services and create higher reliability you will have two very unique paths from the building to the Internet. Everything will be redundant at N+N. T1 service is a unique end-to-end path, but adding a second T1 does not provide a unique secondary path, just a redundant link. |
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Slow and unreliable bandwidth. This is true for low end residential DSL and Cable. With as many as 900 subscribers per 1Mbps it is likely that you would find many slow periods. With advanced business DSL, FOiS and Cable DOCSIS 3 the available bandwidth is still shared but with 18Mbps down and 2Mbps up the speed of bandwidth plus the carrier requirements for VoIP, IP-Video, etc. expand the availability of bandwidth for the business. |
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Truth is that DSL/Cable is just cheap and no one makes a big profit selling it. The carriers are happy that you order it, but the sales margins prohibit your direct sales force from having you flip a 20 T1 MPLS-VPN from $11,000 a month to a $1,800 a month order that has a month-to-month or one year term. |
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T1’s are more reliable, yes, in part because they are at lower speeds than DSL or Cable. The interesting thing is that almost all T1 service is HDSL. Yes, T1 service for most copper installation since the 1990’s has moved from expensive repeaters and careful cable studies to what is called High capacity DSL, or HDSL. So you T1 is just a symmetrical DSL circuit. |
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It is true that the FCC requires the old Bell System to report its T1 outage and that the repair needs to be under 4 hours for 95% of all T1 outages. With the competition heating up in the DSL/Cable G3/G4 cellular, WiMax; market failures for business class DSL/Cable is unacceptable if market share is to be maintained or grown. |
Myth 2: No one is doing this.
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Yes they are. The Federal Reserve has moved from complex Cisco routers with T1 service to Cisco low end routers (ISR 1811) with DSL. Sorry if it's good enough for your money it's good enough... |
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McDonald’s and the rest of the fast food industry discovered that T1 service to each store was cost prohibitive. Higher-end restaurants are still running T1 service, but Morton expects not for long. |
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Retail is migrating to DSL for inventory and credit card processing. High-end is still T1 but with the expected savings the migration has to start. |
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Banking has started to move, diversity and AES-256 encryption. |
Myth 3: If this was a good idea why didn’t my VAR, Cisco Rep and/or telephone people tell me about it?
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All three will tell you it won’t scale. It does. The Cisco 1811 can provide 100Mbps of firewall stateful inspection, 40Mbps of VPN services and 50 VPN tunnels at the same time without WiFi for around $800.00. All managed by Cisco SDM software. |
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DMVPN-mGRE has been tested in networks with 10,000 nodes connecting to multiple diverse hubs. |
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It is true that an $800.00 design will not support the Cisco Call Manager software, but you can upgrade the unit to a router that supports your Call Manager requirements. |
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If you're lowering your network from a Cisco 2811 with a Cisco 2960 switch for eight users for thousands verses an $800 solution with eight switch ports you can understand why. The price is simply too low to present to you by your Cisco VAR. |
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The price change from $550.00 to $85.00 per circuit is substantial. So much so, that no one at the phone company who values their job would want you to cut your costs by that much. |
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A Cisco VAR’s maintenance and configurations reflect the value of the Cisco equipment being sold. A CCIE would be an expensive person for this assignment. With the CCNA Security program, Cisco is enabling CCNAs to perform the entire setup with the SDM: Secure the 1811 with the SDM is press the AUTO Secure button. Configure the firewall service with the SDM. Dynamic VPN – multipoint GRE tunnel from the branch to corporate users with the VPN wizard. The Quality of Service can be done with the QoS button. Open Shortest Path First, routing wizard Dual WAN connectivity with the SDM. |
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The Cisco 1811 is now standard on the Cisco CCIE Security Lab with IOS 12.4T. |
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The Cisco 1811 IOS 12.4 with SDM is the standard for Cisco CCNA – Security Labs. |
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The 1811 expands to 384Mbps of DRAM and 128Mbps of Flash. |
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Ten ports, two WAN, eight switch supporting 8 VLAN’s all fully managed. |
Myth 4: I can’t make it work like I want it to, because Cable/DSL does not do...
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There is no all in one box that supports DOCSIS 3.0 or the newer DSL services. So what. The design for the 1811 is two WAN Fast Ethernet ports. One port connects to the Cable modem, and one port connects to the DSL modem. With this design, the carrier has the ability to troubleshoot the circuit to the modem. Just like a Smartjack on a T1. As your ISP increases the performance of your connection you can just change out the Cable/DSL modem box, no router change. |
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If you are not running OSPF, RIP, EIGRP, or yes BGP that supports multi-pathing, you still can have a primary and secondary path. With the Cisco IOS 12.4 you can use the Cisco protocol IP-SLA to monitor the two links and provide failover from DSL to Cable in the event of a single circuit failure. |
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VoIP, yes you can, the issue is that you are traversing the Internet not a private line. VoIP will vary based on the number of connections. This should be tested before deploying. For 911 services your users must have access to 911 services on any phone. This could move your VoIP/IP-Phone solution to a larger router that supports POTS service. |
What's your take, is George Morton on to something here?
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Even more, you can bond DSL and cable lines together
To add to the great analysis, I would also highlight that there is a new technology trend that has been snowballing in the industry, namely "Broadband Bonding". Broadband Bonding implements bonding of ISP lines at layer4 and above (DSL, Cable or any type from any ISP) to provide highly reliable and a faster IP connectivity. This is especially interesting not only for cost conscious SMBs, but also for enterprise branch offices where the broadband bonding type approach can replace expensive ISDN or T1 based MPLS networks, for accelerated VPN connectivity. Google "Broadband Bonding" to compare the value proposition of this new technology trend to legacy T1s...
Diagrams from Mushroom Networks
San Diego, California based Mushroom Networks manufactures Broadband Bonding appliances.
The diagram below depicts a network after the installation of Mushroom's TRUFFLE, In this case, the total capacity of 5 DSL lines is available. For example, if the downlink capacity of each of the DSL lines is 6 Mbps, then close to 30 Mbps will be available for http traffic. Each of the DSL lines is configured with a static IP address. The Mushroom TRUFFLE BBNA6401 supports dynamic DNS, so that with proper configuration of external DNS servers, inbound traffic (i.e. traffic initiated from outside of the office network) can be load balanced across all of the DSL lines:
Mushroom Networks has developed a Virtual Leased Line (VLL) solution, which enables bonding of multiple Internet access resources such as DSL or Cable to provide reliable high throughput data channels. A Mushroom TRUFFLE™ Broadband Bonding Network Appliance (BBNA) can be installed at the main office and at a branch office as shown below:
Quick Return on Investment:
Compared to the approach of using a T1 line or a bonded T1 line, Mushroom Network’s VLL solution provided by its TRUFFLE BBNA can save a business several hundred dollars per month.
For example, a typical price for bonded T1 service is $800 per month. Rather than using bonded T1, which has a throughput of 3Mbps in each direction, the business can use two TRUFFLE BBNAs and four 6Mbps/768kbps DSL lines. This provides the branch office with a faster 24Mbps/3Mbps data connection to the main office at a fraction of the cost.
A typical price for business DSL is $50 per month, so the cost of four DSL lines is approximately $200 per month. This results in a savings of $600 per month, a 75% savings on monthly fees.
Similarly, consider the case where a T1 line is used, which typically costs around $400 per month. Instead, this could be replaced by 2 DSL lines resulting in a savings of approximately $300 per month.
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Sincerely,
Brad Reese
BradReese.Com Cisco Refurbished
QOS - T1 - 4 hour turn around
I think you make too little of the 4 hour turn around time of T1 service. That is a *major* issue as time goes on. Many ISP's use restrictive contracts that make it difficult to switch from one carrier to another for anything less than their broad SLA. Imaging having 5 consecutive days of downtime. Given a 1 year time peroid you're still looking at less than 2% downtime but does that matter, its 98% uptime you don't meet minimum SLA that allows you out of contract? BUT YOU WERE DOWN FOR FIVE DAYS! .... given T1 service mandates, they've got 4 hours to have someone active on repairing the line, and the longer the line stays down, the more damage the Telco incurs for failure to meet regs.
Additionally, you won't find T1's from one provider easily disconnected by another provider's tech in the field. This was especially true in the early days of DSL, and when verizon was forced to open DSL to other companies, I could have a million fingers and still not have enough fingers and toes to count the times Verizon's own tech's screwed up someone else's DSL line when they stole copper for pots.. The industry is rife with line theft, and now with FIOS verizon is trying to pull this "the building is fiber now, there is no more copper to it" when we all know damned well Verizon didn't dig up and pull the copper back out of the building ...
While on the consumer side you hedge your business by getting multiple lines from multiple groups, you're still no better off when a major outage happens unless you diversify the sources, which now realistically includes wireless.
So ... while its cheaper to go DSL and Cable for access ... if you need damned near 100% up time, you need a T1.
Response from George Morton, Dual CCIE #18532, R&S/Security
Received the following email from George Morton, Dual CCIE #18532, Router/Switch & Security, in response to your comment above:
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Good morning:
I am on the way to the airport, but I have a moment to reply to the T1 line issue.
T1 service is the industry standard for local loop service. Voice and data have long used T1 service with very high reliability standards. The history of DSL services is checkered and I understand the writer’s complaint about DSL.
Times are changing. DSL has gotten better over the years, and although the model calls for multiple DSL connections that does not mean the same provider or physical plant. When recommending this model I recommend one carrier using the local telephone carrier, one for the local cable carrier. Now unlike copper T1 service, I have two physical networks running to two unique ISP’s over two unique networks.
The cable company still has issues with power, the phone companies will have greater issues with power going forward, but using a simple mean time to repair where the DSL/Cable breaks for eight hours once a year the MTBF is still over 99.999%. The math is: quantity 2, (one per carrier), required 1, MTBF 2 years, mean time to repair 8 hours, uptime is 18,809,565 hours, Annual downtime is 0.1 minutes.
If you want to run your own tests the formula and Excel worksheet is in the the book High Availability Network Fundamentals, Cisco Press. The book is great, and ends the judgmental approach to network availability studies. Let the math prove the best network, not guessing. For a client with 500 locations the savings of a dual DSL/Cable solution versus a T1 in every location is around $9,000,000 over five years. You can’t ignore the cost savings, and stability of a dual entrance, dual provider, dual service network versus a single T1.
George Morton, Ph. D.
Dual CCIE 18532, Router/Switch & Security
enabling secure anyspeed, anytime, anywhere networks
954-591-8532 Google Voice
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Sincerely,
Brad Reese on Cisco
Network World Cisco Subnet
BradReese.Com Cisco Refurbished
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