An integrated mgmt. standard nears

As long as we've been writing this newsletter, we've been emphasizing the importance of accurately measuring the performance of frame relay and ATM services so that you can enforce service-level agreements. There are several excellent single-vendor products in place for performing this function, but the integrated monitoring of frame relay, ATM and frame relay-ATM interworked services remains a challenge.

Steps are being made in the multivendor ATM analysis market, however. Late last year, for example, Kentrox and Visual Networks announced a co-marketed product that allows Kentrox's ATM access multiplexers to be managed using Visual's software. This announcement was significant because it signaled the beginning of the adoption of the Visual system as a possible de facto standard for ATM and frame relay performance measurement.

From a practical perspective, it also meant that service providers that offer Visual equipment for frame relay services and Kentrox equipment for ATM services have the building blocks for end-to-end SLA verification in configurations that use frame-to-ATM interworking. According to Kentrox, AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and WorldCom have standardized on the Kentrox AAC Multi-service Access Concentrators as their ATM access equipment choice.

Last week, Visual Networks announced a similar partnership agreement with Cisco that covers the ATM products in Cisco's portfolio.

We think the writing is on the wall. Visual is already a dominant player in the frame relay analysis market. If the agreements with Kentrox and Cisco are already in place for ATM, can integration of the Visual software for frame relay be far behind?

We could envision, for example, the eventual availability of a Cisco router with integral DSU/CSU that's running Visual's software (though the vendors have not explicitly announced this). Today, many midrange and low-end routers already ship with an integrated DSU/CSU. But, as a rule, these routers lack the management tools that one expects for SLA verification.

An exception? We'll point one out in the next newsletter.

Merging ATM and frame relay management
Network World Frame Relay Newsletter, 11/19/01

OpenReach serves up VPN help for frame relay
Network World, 02/25/02

Steven Taylor, consultant and broadband packet evangelist, and Joanie Wexler, an independent networking technology editor and writer, team up to bring you this analysis and commentary. Taylor specializes in education and market analysis, and Wexler adds incisive reporting and research. For more detailed information on most of the topics discussed in this newsletter, connect to www.webtorials.com, the first Web site dedicated exclusively to market studies and technology tutorials in the Broadband Packet areas of Frame Relay, ATM, and IP.

Feedback and additional topic ideas are welcome. Please contact taylor@webtorials.com or joanie@jwexler.com.

Frame Relay archive
Past newsletters.