* The last seven years in wide-area networking
This will be Joanie’s last official Network World Wide-Area Networking newsletter, as she hands the co-authorship reins to Jim Metzler, principal of IT consulting group Ashton, Metzler & Associates. Look for Jim’s byline alongside Steve’s as of next week.
A lot has gone down in the span of the 592 “Wide-Area Networking” newsletters we have written to date (originally called “Frame Relay”). Consider these trends and milestones, for example:
* Frame relay has morphed from the primary strategic WAN of focus to a legacy service, as IP becomes the convergence protocol of choice.
* Foremost on network managers’ minds now is balancing security with usability across IP VPN connections from remote and mobile locations. Keeping Internet-generated infections off user laptops and, in turn, corporate networks, has spawned the “endpoint security” market.
* Multilink Frame Relay services, for speeds between T-1 and T-3, never took off. Some service providers say it was because MFR was complex to implement. Broadband wireless services (including forthcoming WiMAX-based services) could be one emerging alternative hopeful for achieving these “in-between” speeds inexpensively.
* Ethernet services are a moderate success. For now, they are confined to buildings with fiber in the last mile. Also, they tend to not carry service-level agreements as robust as their frame relay and ATM service predecessors. Verizon Communications is immersed in a well-publicized last-mile fiber-to-the-premises effort, which has swept 11 states so far, so perhaps that initiative will yield broader availability of multimegabit Ethernet and transparent LAN services for site-to-site VPN connectivity.
* WAN access routers have grown much more sophisticated, integrating functions such as encryption processing, voice processing, LAN switching and even wireless LAN switching.
* Traditionally carrier-centric Juniper Networks entered the enterprise routing space with its J-Series WAN access routers in June 2004. Likewise, in 2003, 3Com re-entered the enterprise market, after abandoning it in 1996 to focus on small and midsize customers. It announced its 3000 and 6000 WAN access routers in September 2004.
* Traffic management systems, which perform deep-packet inspection of WAN-bound packet traffic, have evolved into a staple in many converged networks. They have become necessary for managing performance of links sharing applications of varying priorities to the enterprise and for controlling bandwidth costs. They exist in appliance form from companies like Packeteer and Allot Communications and in embedded router form from Cisco.
* The Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the New York World Trade Center hastily ended NetWorld+Interop in Atlanta, put disaster recovery on IT departments’ project lists, and boosted wireless networking into the mainstream for true redundancy.
* AT&T has been in and out of the cable business, the cellular business, and is now being purchased by one of her former children, SBC.
* We’ve witnessed the resignation of two FCC chairmen: Reed Hundt and now, Michael C. Powell, who will leave his post in March.
* The line-sharing spirit of the Telecom Act of 1996 has officially been deemed a failure for stimulating local-loop competition, and CLECs a-plenty have come and gone.
* MCI has changed its name at least twice. Let’s leave it at that.
Note that if you have an interest in wireless technologies and trends, you can continue to read Joanie’s twice-weekly Network World “Wireless in the Enterprise” newsletter, which covers the gamut of air-related networking issues of importance to enterprise IT departments. If you don’t already receive it, sign up at https://www.nwwsubscribe.com/Default.aspx?keycode=foc15 . The archives are at https://www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/wireless
