Nortel set to dig into branch-office networks
Nortel is expected to launch its first branch-office WAN optimization product this week, entering an emerging but crowded market.
Nortel’s Business Continuity System (BCS) is an appliance that sits on both ends of a WAN link to speed remote file access by branch-office users. Nortel is using Windows Server 2003 Release 2 and wide-area file services (WAFS) technology from Tacit Networks (bought by Packeteer in May) in the product.
Over the last year, the WAN acceleration market has been hot. Juniper and Cisco went on buying sprees in 2005, purchasing smaller companies with products that compress the size of files and speed protocols traveling over WAN links, as well as replicate data center environments at branch offices. A host of companies – F5 Networks, Silver Peak, Blue Coat, Riverbed and Expand among them – are also releasing products in this market.
For its part, Nortel is introducing the BCS 3000 Branch Office and Data Center devices. BCS 3000s sit at both ends of a T-1 or other WAN link, and behind network routers. The BCS 3000 Branch Office box is a modular device with a management processor and three slots for service blades. Blade options include one that runs WAFS software from Tacit, which provides local file caching and replication of the Common Internet File System protocol environment used for remote access to Microsoft-based files.
Another blade runs an embedded version of Windows Server 2003 Release 2. Nortel technologists say this combination of WAFS technology and tight Microsoft integration replicates a complete Microsoft server environment in the branch, with DNS, DHCP and file-and-print services, as well as faster remote application access.
“[The BCS] integrates with the Microsoft domain and IPSec environments,” says Phil Edholm, enterprise CTO at Nortel. “So this [BCS] node sitting between a device in the branch and a server in the data center can be part of a trust chain.”
Edholm says this tight Microsoft integration makes the product different from other WAFS offerings, such as Cisco’s File Engine products and Juniper’s WX and WXC appliances, because these boxes don’t participate in a Microsoft Active Directory structure or authenticate to Microsoft servers via IPSec.
The BCS 3000 Branch Office also has remote configuration, management and monitoring tools built into its management module. This lets administrators remotely make changes to or reboot services or Tacit WAFS services.
“The BCS 3000 Data Center device also can be used to connect larger data centers to regional data centers, or to mirror data centers over optical WAN links. Course wave division multiplexing (CWDM) optical connections can be added to the data center version to connect data center networks over long-distance fiber.
One industry observer says the integration of Microsoft and Tacit technologies into Nortel network gear could challenge WAN acceleration rivals.
“Nortel needed a way to get back into branch offices,” says Joe Skorupa, a research vice president at Gartner. “Cisco has a very large percentage of the branch office. This is a way for Nortel to position Cisco as plumbing supplier, and to tell customers how to build [advanced] network services on top of Cisco plumbing.”
Making the BCS 3000 modular could help Nortel deploy more kinds of services to branches, and perhaps even supplant Cisco in some environments.
“[Nortel] will use the BCS to roll out other technologies; they could put one of their new branch-office router cards in it or they could put firewalls, security or voice over IP services,” Skorupa says.
The BCS 3000 starts at $8,500 for branch offices with fewer than 20 users. The BCS for branches with as many as 100 users starts at $17,000. CWDM connections for the BCS 3000 start at $18,000
