* Data traffic is doubling annually, survey says
In recent newsletters, we’ve discussed some of the issues associated with data center consolidation. In particular, we noted that as companies consolidate their data centers they tend to place a higher value on providing data center access that is speedier and more reliable. We also sought your input into the general topic of providing WAN access into data centers. Today, we begin the first in a series of newsletters that will summarize the input that we received from industry analysts, service providers and IT organizations.
One of the other industry analysts that we talked to was Michael Howard of Infonetics Research. Howard recently completed a study that included a survey of 100 users and their plans for high-speed access within North America. One of the trends identified was that data traffic is doubling annually and this was driven in a large part by the move to make more applications accessible over the WAN.
Given the high value that network organizations place on ensuring the availability of WAN access into the corporate data centers, it was not surprising that Infonetics’ study identified the leading service feature that network organizations consider when choosing a service provider is real-time network monitoring and fault detection. The next most important service feature is service-level agreements (SLA) with an emphasis on service restoration intervals.
The study also identified the technologies and carriers that network organizations are using. It was interesting to realize that 40% of the companies surveyed are already using Ethernet at the headquarters sites, with roughly a quarter of these facilities running either Gigabit Ethernet or 10 Gigabit Ethernet. The vast majority of companies are using the major inter-exchange carriers and incumbent local exchange carriers such as AT&T and Verizon. However, a sizeable minority is using some of the larger competitive local exchange carriers or multiple system operators (MSO) such as Broadwing and Time Warner Cable.
In our next newsletter, we will discuss the input that we got from two carriers on this topic.
