Error 404--Not Found |
From RFC 2068 Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1:10.4.5 404 Not FoundThe server has not found anything matching the Request-URI. No indication is given of whether the condition is temporary or permanent. If the server does not wish to make this information available to the client, the status code 403 (Forbidden) can be used instead. The 410 (Gone) status code SHOULD be used if the server knows, through some internally configurable mechanism, that an old resource is permanently unavailable and has no forwarding address. |
Bet on it. It not only will happen faster than anyone thought, but for most users, they won't even notice it. Today, most enterprises have at least six networks, most of which connect to each other mainly by rumor.
Six? Please give some examples.
Every enterprise has a big old-fashioned circuit-switched voice network that historically accounted for 80% of the firm's traffic but now is closer to 50%. This circuit-switched voice network is still growing - but slowly. Traditional telephony is growing about 3% per employee per year in total minutes. The real growth of the network has come in new applications, such as voice mail and call centers. Most companies' call center traffic is increasing by 20%.
This first network is addressable by IP switching. Perhaps only 5% of this traffic will migrate to IP switching in the next two years. But in big companies, such as those in the Yankee Group 200, IP might assume 30% of this traditional voice traffic in five years. Call centers will become cyber call centers, and voice mail could easily migrate to IP.
What is the second type of network an enterprise has?
Each Yankee Group 200 customer has an IBM SNA network to carry mission-critical applications. While not actually growing, this network is large. Administrators would have no problem migrating at least half of these SNA networks to IP within the next three or four years. Another 25% of the legacy networks could make the switch in the following three or four years, while some of them may never move.
That's two.
The third type of corporate network is client/server, an architecture that's ready to go to IP today. Client/server was designed for nonhierarchical communications. Client/server deployments such as Windows NT are growing 35% per year. Many of The Yankee Group's larger customers are retrofitting their SNA networks to this environment, and almost all new development is on the NT platform.
What about intranets and the Internet?
The Internet and intranets only generate a small portion of overall network traffic but are more than doubling every year. That's 10% per month, 120% per year. The real truth is they are growing so fast that only half of the larger companies we are talking to can guess about their own growth. This fourth category of networks has the advantage of being packet-based and IP-ready.
What are the last two?
Those are easy - international voice and international data, including faxes. Since carrier services are expensive, companies have good incentive to migrate this traffic to IP. The infrastructure is already in place, and the international voice and data networks of large firms are growing at 18% per year. A fax to Israel may cost $4 today but will drop to just 20 cents over IP. At that rate, it's amazing more companies aren't migrating this traffic to IP.
What's the bottom line?
Companies will first peel off expensive applications and put them on IP, then they'll move right up the food chain. Video? Yes, but that's not the killer application. Every company has 110 different vendors in its network and far too many technologies. Every smart firm wants not just fewer vendors, but fewer technologies. Their network control centers are overwhelmed.
IP switching is the architecture they're building around and they'll search out carriers and suppliers who see the world the same way.
