AT&T's Eslambolchi talks IP

Hossein Eslambolchi is in the unusual position of holding three executive roles at one of the largest U.S. companies. A 17-year  AT&T veteran, he is president of AT&T Labs, CTO and CIO. Eslambolchi says the hands-on experience gives him the diversity of knowledge needed to look ahead to next-generation technology and the operational know-how to reduce costs. He recently spoke with Network World Senior Editor Denise Pappalardo.

MCI has maintained for years that it has the largest IP backbone. But AT&T makes the same claims. Can you explain?
We have the largest IP network in the world. AT&T transports about 1,200 terabytes of data per day on our IP network. That's 1.2 petabytes per day. We have more than 5,000 points of presence. Each day we transport 10 times as much data as voice traffic. We transport about 4.4 petabytes a day of high-speed data including IP, ATM, frame relay and private line. Compared to voice, where we transport 450 terabytes of traffic per day.

MCI keeps saying it's connected to more autonomous systems or other IP backbones. They also talk about the number of endpoints connected to the network, but those measurements are not sufficient. How much traffic you generate is a more important point.

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Hossein Eslambolchi is in the unusual position of holding three executive roles at one of the largest U.S. companies. A 17-year  AT&T veteran, he is president of AT&T Labs, CTO and CIO. Eslambolchi says the hands-on experience gives him the diversity of knowledge needed to look ahead to next-generation technology and the operational know-how to reduce costs. He recently spoke with Network World Senior Editor Denise Pappalardo.

MCI has maintained for years that it has the largest IP backbone. But AT&T makes the same claims. Can you explain?
We have the largest IP network in the world. AT&T transports about 1,200 terabytes of data per day on our IP network. That's 1.2 petabytes per day. We have more than 5,000 points of presence. Each day we transport 10 times as much data as voice traffic. We transport about 4.4 petabytes a day of high-speed data including IP, ATM, frame relay and private line. Compared to voice, where we transport 450 terabytes of traffic per day.

MCI keeps saying it's connected to more autonomous systems or other IP backbones. They also talk about the number of endpoints connected to the network, but those measurements are not sufficient. How much traffic you generate is a more important point.

Why should it be important to a business user if AT&T, MCI or someone else has the largest IP network?
Because the largest IP provider can directly reach more points on the Internet, therefore bringing business users closer to content and also bringing the larger Internet closer to their content. We have 4 million business customers. We're partnering with six of the largest cable companies to support their IP traffic.
 
Isn't quality and reliability a bigger factor for customers?
About three years ago reliability of the network was nowhere near the reliability of the public switched telephone network. We were at about 99% reliability, which is extremely poor. Over the last two to two-and-a-half years, we've worked very closely with our vendors. We've taken them to AT&T's school of reliability. When they graduate they're at 99.99% reliability, which is like a college degree.

What does 99.99% reliability mean to a user?
In determining the reliability of a network you look at the number of defects per million. For example, if a port is available for 1 million hours and it experiences 100 defects in that time, we say it has 100 DPMs. That's equivalent to 50 minutes of downtime for every 1 million hours.
 
When will the IP network have the same reliability, 99.999%, as AT&T's other data services?
It may take another 12 to 24 months to reach that level. Five nines of reliability is what we're shooting for. A network with 99.999% reliability means it experiences 10 DPM, which is equivalent to a maximum of 5 minutes of downtime every year. At five nines the network is ready for mission-critical applications.

AT&T is consolidating its networks to one IP backbone. What are some of the key steps?
The plan is to deploy multiservice switches, which will support Layer 2 and Layer 3 services, in the network in the first quarter. We'll deploy 80 switches over a period of time.

...There is a lot of complexity at the edge of the network, and this is where the battleground is. We've been building the systems to support this multiservice edge. We've also been working on creating an aggregator box called a multi-service aggregator [MSA]. This device will take all traffic in from the edge and deliver it as IP over Ethernet.