Imagine the CEO of your company wants to set up an interactive videoconference for fifty executives scattered throughout the world. Bandwidth on the network is tight. You've already been waiting six weeks for the new T-1 line you ordered from your carrier. What do you do?
If you were able to provision bandwidth on demand, this scenario wouldn't be a problem. You could simply log on to your carrier's Web site, select the amount of bandwidth you need for the time you need it, and get billed for it at the end of the month. Service provisioning can make this scenario a reality.
Service-provisioning products are the hardware and software that let carriers manage their networks, automatically allocating capacity, tracking usage and providing stats for billing. While optical networking equipment provides the bandwidth carriers need to build high-speed networks, service-provisioning products provide the means for carriers to make money from the bandwidth.
Four vendors made provisioning announcements at the recent SuperComm trade show in Atlanta: Tenor Networks, ONI Systems, Dynarc and Alcatel SA. A closer analysis of their announcements, however, shows that beneath interoperability demos, cute graphical user interfaces, and bravura sales pitches, there are some hurdles to surmount before these products deliver the goods.
The main problem is that there's no consensus on how optical provisioning should be implemented. Right now, most vendors are using proprietary solutions - including ones based on adaptations of Multi-protocol Label Switching (MPLS) for optical networks. A new version of MPLS is in the works, but it's far from complete.
Experts also warn against making assumptions about touted MPLS support. "There's confusion about what it means to use MPLS," says Jim Lawrence, program director at consultancy Stratecast Partners. He says there will be key differences between MPLS that is used to provision IP networks in general and the version of MPLS that's being designed by groups such as the Optical Domain Service Interconnect (ODSI) coalition to work with special signaling protocols to configure optical connections.
Some even question how well MPLS will serve as the jack-of-all-trades-protocol for provisioning. Vendors developing MPLS are "a bunch of lemmings," according to Stuart Barnes, director of engineering at Lilotron, a U.K. start-up developing an all-optical switch. In his view, they are ignoring some harsh realities of carrier networks - such as the fact that incumbents have massive amounts of legacy gear already in place that can't be easily upgraded to support MPLS.
Others point out that there are some parts of carrier networks where MPLS may not be a fit at all. "MPLS will certainly be a big deal in the core. But it won't be used all the way out to the metro edge of the network. "That's BS!" exclaims Carl Russo, group vice president of the optical networking group at Cisco. Russo says MPLS will work well on backbone networks because they are built on a mesh topology - the environment MPLS is designed for. But on the other hand, he says, MPLS is a poor fit for metro networks " ... because they are physically built in rings, and will be for some time to come."
All of the vendors say they'll support MPLS-based standards over time from groups such as the IETF, Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) and ODSI.
And none of them are willing to wait and see what comes of these efforts before heading to market. They have good reason: Initial MPLS-based provisioning specs from OIF and ODSI aren't expected until later this year, with prototypes following in 2001. How well these groups work together to come up with a common spec is also somewhat questionable.
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The Optical Networking Newsletter brings you stories from The Edge, Network World's service provider equipment print section and Web channel. The Edge’s managing editor, Jim Duffy, can be reached at jduffy@nww.com
SuperComm to highlight carrier-customer edgeThe Edge, 06/05/00. Firms work on standard to provision optical nets
Network World, 01/17/00. Tenor Networks Inc. ONI Systems Corp. Dynarc Inc. Alcatel SA Stratecast Partners Optical Internetworking Forum Optical Domain Service Interconnect coalition Archive of Network World on Optical newsletters
