• Latency—Critically important in electronic trading and a growing range of industries, network latency varies substantially from fiber path to fiber path and multiplexing platform to multiplexing platform. Reducing the fiber path by one physical kilometer of fiber translates into five microseconds of one-way latency that is eliminated, and Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) introduces significantly more packet delay than does Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM).  Furthermore, significant differences in latency are generated by the way a given WDM system performs regeneration, amplification and color conversion. For example, some WDM systems use a technique for offsetting chromatic dispersion that adds additional latencies to the signal. Other systems are “carrier” based in their design and add extra overhead like Forward Error Correction (FEC) and other non-data-center-friendly transmission technologies. This is especially true for users in the metro (under 200km) that want to run “native” channels over their WDM infrastructure.

• Power efficiency—Some WDM systems consume double the energy of others, which can add up to the price paid for hardware after just three years. Furthermore, the ability to support the highest native data rates (such as 5G and 10G InfiniBand, or 8Gbit/s and soon 16G Fibre Channel, or 10G QFabrics from Juniper) enables this end-to-end power efficiency.

• Rack-space efficiency—Data-center real estate is expensive, and some WDM systems demand twice the equipment rack space of others. Search for a WDM system with a data-center Design.

• Simplicity—Some WDM systems are up and running within one day; whereas, others typically require three days or more. This adds significant OPEX cost to the solution. If it’s hard to install, suspect that it is hard to maintain.

• Investment protection—Some WDM systems available in the marketplace today still fail to support 8G Fibre Channel, and the protocol has been available since 2008. Similarly, tried-and-true, legacy protocols that continue to be relied upon across the enterprise cannot be simply abandoned. Data centers are likely to be heterogeneous protocol environments for the foreseeable future, so wide protocol support is a must for a WDM solution to shoulder interconnection.

• Security—Fiber can be tapped more inexpensively and easily than ever, so a comprehensive, modular security strategy is necessary to ensure protection for a company’s valuable information assets. Some WDM systems offer a cost-efficient capability to fully encrypt certain channels of traffic and monitor for intrusions at the physical layer. The result is a sophisticated security solution—without threatening degradation of the superior, low-latency performance for an organization’s most demanding local and storage area network (LAN and SAN) applications.

• Qualification—Consider the example that the largest storage system vendors have never accepted support calls if the WDM platform that a data center employs is not qualified specifically with that system vendor. Qualifications with all leading SAN vendors like IBM, EMC, Brocade and HDS is a must for interconnecting data centers.

In striving to implement the optimal interconnection strategy for their organizations, data-center managers must carefully examine their potential infrastructure partners with regard to costs and tradeoffs across all seven of these areas. Protocol-agnostic WDM can play a valuable, unifying role for data-center interconnection, delivering benefits of effectively unlimited bandwidth, superior performance and long-term support for current and emerging protocol needs. But the differences among WDM platforms matter, and data-center managers must look for a WDM system that optimizes their environment.

If successful, O2′s network will be a first for the U.K. and for Europe and will hopefully stimulate similar developments in other cities. There can be no question that the U.K. needs to start driving forward with mobile connectivity. However, while I was reading about this project, I was reminded of an article in Gigaom from last year. This article discussed whether our WiFi expectations are simply too high and misaligned with service providers’ plans.

What’s striking about the Gigaom article is the apparent discord between users and service providers. Sure, nothing new you may be thinking, but let’s look at the figures. According to a report from Devicescape, over 83% of users believe that service providers should be offering some form of free WiFi access as part of mobile subscriptions. This contrasts with figures from the Wireless Broadband Alliance that shows only 47% of service providers believe WiFi offload to be an important part of their mobile strategy. The difference in figures here is huge. The key question is how do we all move forward together?

Unfortunately, I’m not sure we’ll see any form of structured approach to developing WiFi blankets anytime soon. Looking at London, there are already a number of small trials being run across the city to offer some form of free connectivity. Just look at Nokia’s offering from 2011 to see this in action. What’s needed is a collaborative approach. One need only look at cable providers in New York to see what’s possible here. But are we likely to see this model replicated elsewhere. Do service providers have it in their DNA to collaborate?

I’m sure service providers will be watching O2’s success here before taking any competitive measures. However, as I highlighted in an earlier post, it’s clear that we’re entering an age of WiFi connectivity. People expect access to data wherever and whenever and with poor coverage and data caps continuing to restrict people’s mobile data usage, especially in the U.K., WiFi offloading is the next logical step. It will be interesting to see which service providers accept the challenge and begin to offer compelling WiFi packages in their tariffs.

What do you think to O2’s plans? Do we expect too much from WiFi? Should WiFi offload be a part of every service providers’ mobile strategy? Let me know what you think.

How long does it take for a packet of data to make its way from one point in a network to another? That measurement of time is defined as the latency of a path, and it can be influenced by a tremendous range of factors. Data-center managers in the most latency-sensitive markets must steep themselves in an understanding of all of those factors if they are to give their companies optimal competitive advantage.

Many of the new and trendy innovations have been enabled through migrating telecom networks from a static, circuit-switched infrastructure to a more flexible and scalable packet-based technology. The wide-scale adoption of Ethernet as a transport protocol and the increased usage of fiber in all parts of the network allowed operators to provide more bandwidth at significantly lower cost.

Software has started to play a much more dominant role in all layers of the network lately to increase flexibility, provide service awareness and to keep cost under control. Software Defined Networking promises to enable operators to implement innovative services more easily and much faster in all parts of their network. This includes fixed network infrastructure, wireless networks, data center networks and access networks for business and residential users. SDN also promises to enable a better control over the network and optimize the usage of the available resources according to the actual demand.

Software Defined Networking also plays a critical role in optical networks, especially when looking at transmission speeds beyond 100G – we refer to it as Software Defined Optics (SDO). Increased spectral efficiency comes at the expense of reach when going beyond 100G on a single wavelength. Higher-order modulation schemes provide better spectral efficiency but have a significant impact on the reach achievable. There clearly is no one-size-fits-all solution anymore.

In agile optical networks where communication routes are switched between different end points according to the actual demand, the concept of SDO enables network operators to flexibly adapt their network to actual requirements. They can utilize the same transponder hardware to transmit at lower capacity over longer distances or provide maximum capacity over a short distance. SDO increases the agility of a network by utilizing adaptive modulation schemes and software-driven error correction and equalization technology. And SDO allows reducing the energy consumption of a network by adapting available capacity to demand – an important characteristic for telecom and data center applications.

In other words: Software Defined Networking builds a robust foundation for future networking innovation.

Yet what would happen if access to this type of processing power were opened up? What if it was democratized to the point that it’s available to a mass audience? How would this impact upon our society and our future? These are some of the questions asked in a recent Gigaom article that demands entrepreneurs and technologists to think bigger. To look beyond the continued development of lifestyle and gaming applications and assess how they can use their talents and the considerable advancements in technology to drive humanity forward.

Clearly these are enormous questions, but I can’t help but think of the possibilities here. One need only look at Amazon’s HPC-as-a-Service platform to see some of the opportunities available. Let me expand on this. Until now, access to this type of processing power has been available only to government agencies, R&E bodies, pharmaceutical companies and other such well-funded organisations. With Amazon’s offering, HPC becomes an increasingly mainstream proposition. Sure, $1,000 per hour is not quite within the reach of everyone, but for startup companies or smaller organisations that wish to access this type of computing power there’s now a real opportunity to do so.

What’s clear is that we need this type of innovation and liberalization of technology. If we are to start answering questions critical to the development of our world we need platforms such as Amazon’s HPC service. It’s only through the democratization of technology that we can achieve true advancement. However, this is reflected throughout the technology ecosystem. One need only look at the drive for universal broadband access or the One Laptop per Child initiative to see how critical it is to make technology available to all, to ensure that every society has the tools they need to improve.

Although I’ve talked on a global scale above, it’s also important to think about how technology access impacts upon the local environment. I remember a fascinating piece I read some time ago on how Chinese farmers are using mobile telephones to develop a network of information that provides advanced weather warnings, suggestions on how to improve crop yields, etc. It’s this type of democratization of technology and data that are critical to the world’s development.

Do you believe that technology and data democratization are important? Is greater access to processing power critical? Have you tried Amazon’s HPC services? If so, how has it impacted upon your business? Let me know what you think on this.

Although initially sceptical about this type of application, I now find myself not only watching more television programmes but also engaging with friends and family in discussions about the programmes I’m watching. In fact, this app is somewhat infectious. My wife is now also using it to talk to her social circles. What’s incredible about this app is how it’s starting to transform what could be considered the last ‘dumb screen’ in the house.

However, it’s the whole notion of connectivity that’s driving a dramatic resurgence in the popularity of the traditional family TV unit. There can be no question that over the past few years, the TV has started to wane as the central hub of family entertainment. The growing trend of cord cutting has seen a dramatic increase in the number of people watching programmes on computers, laptops and tablets and resulted in the unwieldy and disconnected TV losing popularity. Yet the dramatic growth in Internet-enabled TVs seems to be reversing this trend.

With TVs now connected directly to the Internet and increased opportunities to subscribe to IPTV services, people are now embracing more freedom than ever before. They are liberating their entertainment. The popularity of à la carte TV is one key driver, enabling people to pay for what they watch. Moving forward though, it’s the social aspect of TV that may prove to be one of the most vital services in TV’s resurgence. Connecting the TV to your social circles suddenly opens up a whole new element to the viewing experience.

Some commentators even claim that social TV applications, such as Zeebox, have the power to disrupt the whole TV industry and radically alter how we engage with programmes. Indeed, we’re only at the first stage of seeing these social apps impact upon our viewing habits. It will be fascinating to see what happens when they move from the iPad and are directly accessible on the TV unit itself.

One key issue to success here is connectivity. To truly embrace the future of the connected TV, our networks need to continue developing. There are many people who are still unable to access basic video streaming let alone HD quality programming. If the TV is ever to reassert its position within the connected household we need to continue driving forward universal broadband access.

We also need to consider the cultural aspect. The growing generation of digital natives may find the socially connected TV a normal part of everyday life. However, to older generations familiar with the TV being a standalone and isolated device, the sudden intrusion of social networks may be too big a barrier to overcome.

What do you think to this? Will Internet-enabled and socially connected TVs see a resurgence in the devices popularity? Will TVs once again become a family hub? Or are there now too many other competing devices for this to happen? I find this a fascinating topic and would be interested to hear your thoughts on this.

Today’s data centers are state-of-the-art, heavily secured facilities in which extraordinary efforts are undertaken—at sometimes extraordinary expense—to protect a company’s most highly sensitive information assets.

But what happens when the data leaves the building? Today’s weak link in data-center security typically is the connection from one facility to another—one that is either owned and maintained by the enterprise or procured from a carrier.

Sufficiently protecting data along these connections—without jeopardizing the performance of a company’s most demanding local and storage area network (LAN and SAN) applications that are carried across them—demands an end-to-end, modular approach to security that can be tailored to varying needs. There are multiple principles of security that must be drawn from. Solutions based on Layer 3 encryption protocols such as Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) and Secure Socket Layer (SSL) Virtual Private Network (VPN) are often not appropriate for securing a company’s most time-sensitive LAN and SAN services, for example, because of the security scheme’s impact on latency and other key performance parameters. Data-center managers require a security solution that at the same time delivers ample protection and supports necessary levels of application speed, throughput and configuration simplicity.

End-to-end monitoring of optical-layer performance and power is particularly valuable for data mirroring and other synchronous services. Without increasing a data-center network’s bandwidth requirements or latency, enabling intrusion detection at the physical layer can support fast identification, isolation and mitigation to network events such as malicious breaches, cable breaks, receiver overloads and data-signal loss or weakness. Violation of software-adjustable switching thresholds, for example, can reveal fiber cuts. Fiber degradation can be revealed by alarms related to adjustable minimum/maximum fiber-attenuation thresholds. Keeping an eye toward typical power signatures can serve as a tool against fiber intrusion, and a spatial fault locator leveraging in-service Optical Time Domain Reflection (OTDR) measurement can help fiber problems such as taps be quickly pinpointed for more rapid resolution. Monitoring long-term fiber performance via databases, meanwhile, can help data-center managers avert issues over time.

Together, these capabilities provide substantial protection against intrusion on the optical connections among data centers, but even these capabilities aren’t enough. The security task facing data-center managers today has grown significantly more challenging, as the methods and opportunities of accessing data in transit across optical fiber have multiplied and grown harder to detect over the last decade as companies have sought to share more and more valuable information assets over longer and longer distances. For example, low-cost, passive, non-intrusive optical monitoring devices have emerged and are widely available. Because they can be used to view data in transit without actually harming the fiber link, data-center managers require an additional measure of protection beyond intrusion detection.

To address this issue, encryption can be added per channel on an as-needed basis in some implementations of Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) transmission. Some WDM systems allow for the strategic, selective encryption of certain Ethernet, Fibre Channel, InfiniBand or other service at the physical layer on the transponder card itself. This modularity is critical because no cloud provider, for example, could afford to deploy and manage hundreds of encryption devices at the ends of all of their optical links to their users. Rather, by enabling per-channel encryption via a single, customer-owned card—inserted into the service provider’s existing WDM system that is already performing the multiplexing of protocols—data security is achieved for key links without need of additional boxes or real estate. A customer maintains control of its cards and encryption keys.

With such a complete and integrated, modular approach to protection—leveraging physical-layer monitoring, per-channel encryption and security-hardened software—critical information is protected without jeopardizing superior, low-latency performance for an enterprise’s most demanding applications. Companies cost-effectively comply with information-protection regulations and protect their businesses, and carriers and service providers are positioned to serve new customers in key verticals and differentiate offerings by enabling new encryption services such as transmission and encryption management.

The unique ability to fully encrypt payloads and monitor for intrusions at the physical layer is yet another reason that WDM figures to be the unifying platform for data-center interconnection for the foreseeable future. Enabling native-speed performance for any standard protocol, supporting lowest-latency transmission and offering unlimited bandwidth, sophisticated security and investment protection, WDM provides data-center managers with an unmatched set of capabilities for simplifying support of their companies’ full array of LAN and SAN applications.

The two-day event saw a series of informative presentations and panel discussions. Not so much on technology evolution and innovation anymore. Much more focused on how Carrier Ethernet is used and will be used in future networks. And a lot of discussions exploring how Carrier Ethernet will enable new applications including cloud services and how these applications will influence Carrier Ethernet equipment.

One of the interesting debates was centered around OAM tools and their usage in today’s telecom networks. A multitude of tools for offering service level agreements across networks have been defined by the standard bodies and are broadly available in Carrier Ethernet solutions today. But how many are practically used in the networks and why?

First and foremost, it depends on the application. While providers of business services typically activate more Ethernet OAM to provide service differentiation and assure service level agreements to their customers, wholesalers tend to limit OAM usage to achieve operational simplicity, versatility and service scalability. Mobile backhaul service providers, in contrast, make heavy use of OAM tools to fulfill the strict performance requirements requested by mobile operators. The lack of service OAM with wholesale products in general is one of the challenges global and alternative service providers face when connecting their customers to their network in off-net locations.

There are quite a few Ethernet service providers, however, who started to turn on more OAM for their services. A general trend: Evolving from basic offerings to services including rich OAM. In addition to simplifying installation and troubleshooting, we see commercial Ethernet services offering performance reporting via customer portals. And some of them even offer it on a virtual circuit and class of service level. Some of the providers mentioned that it is better to monitor and report performance before customers start doing it – much less room for debate.

But there is more to come. Fault indication and signaling based on service performance starts to get introduced in production networks. Lots of open questions here: How to signal service degradation, vendor-specific interpretations and how to define the right threshold values for switching to an alternate path, due to increased loss rate or delay. There is a question of quality of service versus quality of experience. Assurance and performance measurement of timing and synchronization services delivered by access and backhaul operators is another open question.

The biggest challenge is seen, however, in the implementation complexity of powerful OAM tools. The more tools you activate and the more information you signal and expose to your customer, the more complex the service definition becomes. And the administrative effort for commissioning and maintenance increases rapidly. This requires powerful network and service management tools taking this burden away from the operator by automation. This is a new direction where we expect to see a lot of innovation at the next premier Carrier Ethernet event.

It’s tantalising to imagine such a reality. To have our photos, videos, music, documents and every other piece of important data close to our fingertips and accessible by any connected device. Dropbox is certainly not alone in its ambition to become the universal keeper and distributor of data though. One need only look at Apple’s iCloud or Google’s rumoured Drive (GDrive) to see this is a huge market and one where the Internet giants are keen to capitalize. There can be no question that part of the reason Dropbox is trying to make as much noise now is the threat from Apple and Google, especially on mobile devices.

Earlier this month, Dropbox announced a new partnership with HTC. Apparently this is the first in a series of mobile announcements that we can expect to see from Dropbox as we move into 2012. What’s clear is that Dropbox is trying to get a headstart on Apple and Google in regards to mobile and what’s key here is the company’s simplicity. Dropbox is an incredibly easy application to use and it remains to be seen if iCloud and GDrive will be able to improve upon this enough to entice users away. Of course, pricing will also play a key role here and one has to question whether Dropbox will be able to compete with the vast cash reserves of Apple and Google.

Regardless of which company wins market supremacy, what’s fascinating to explore is how the network will support these grand ambitions of ubiquitous data access. What’s guaranteed is that mobile broadband will play a key role. As I mentioned in a previous post, LTE and 4G networks are rolling out rapidly, at least in some parts of the world. Indeed, only this week, Sprint announced plans to upgrade part of its network to LTE Advanced. U.S. dominance in LTE and 4G deployments bodes well for companies such as Dropbox, Apple and Google, who are all heavily targeting their domestic market.

Looking beyond LTE and 4G, it’s reassuring to see that global mobile broadband speeds are continuing to rise. Earlier this month, Akami announced its latest State of the Internet report and highlighted significant increases in broadband speed and demand. One key detail shows that mobile speeds are growing with the average connection in some cities achieving highs of about 5 Mbps. However, for over 75% of connections surveyed, the average speed was much lower at around 1 Mbps. Still, this marks a definite increase.

Pricing and availability of mobile coverage is another key issue that needs to be addressed for Houston’s ambitions to become a reality. I was interested to read this week of Vodafone’s struggle to entice users onto LTE networks. Current subscription rates are flat and it’s understandable when you consider that average LTE price plans are about €80 per month. I’m sure prices will decrease as more LTE networks are deployed and competition is stimulated, but for now the extra expense is difficult to justify.

Looking beyond the immediate network realities, it is clear to see that we are moving, although incrementally, towards Houston’s vision and this is exciting. A truly connected world of both individuals and data is an incredible goal and one that many of us are continuing to push for every day.

What do you think of being connected anywhere? Do you see advantages to having your data follow you? Are there any disadvantages that you foresee? Let me know what you think on this.

Just as was the case with Fiber Data Distributed Interface (FDDI), with Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and with InfiniBand, the story with DCB goes that it will bring simplified, more cost-efficient order to corporate networking via one broad-shoulders fabric onto which all existing enterprise local and storage area network (LAN and SAN) applications will someday be collapsed. It is a nice thought, for sure; every data-center manager likes the idea of streamlining architectural and organizational complexities and freeing time and money to concentrate on creatively improving service for end users. And, indeed, there is value that DCB can deliver today—for I/O consolidation inside the server, for example.

As always, however, the devil is in the details. The mature protocols that emergent DCB is supposed to subsume have been developed and refined over years to deliver key features and functionality that are tailored to the unique applications that they enable.

Consider, for example, the flow-control mechanism that Fibre Channel employs to ensure the reliability and performance of mission-critical, real-time business continuity and disaster recovery (BC/DR) services. In order to support (with no packet loss) these most time sensitive of applications over distance, “buffer credits” are utilized by Fibre Channel switches across Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) wavelengths in a metro network (usually less than 150km). Large enterprise customers will typically use native Fibre Channel over DWDM wavelengths to achieve the lowest latency and highest throughput for synchronous off-site storage replication of a company’s most critical data.

Unless the Ethernet switch venders drastically increase interface buffers on their 10GbE ports, then we fail to see how 10G Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE)/DCB will have the reach and performance of native 10G Fibre Channel over DWDM.

In addition, the Priority Flow Control (PFC) used by lossless Ethernet is the exact opposite of Fibre Channel buffer-to-buffer credits. When the receiver starts running out of buffers, it has to send a message to stop the sender. What happens to the data in transit? Lost packets typically are not acceptable for SAN applications. In the Fibre Channel world, buffer-to-buffer credit starvation simply slows down the performance and throughput as shown in the diagram above. It doesn’t just switch off the sender.

Alternatively, the Fibre Channel traffic can be demultiplexed from the converged DCB/FCoE stream and then encapsulated for transport across Fibre Channel/Internet Protocol (FCIP) gateways across distance. But Fibre Channel SAN users already rely on FCIP gateways for this today when going extended distances beyond the metro (greater than 150km). So what is the point of adding the costs and conversion latencies introduced by the FCoE/DCB scheme on top of this?

One thing is for sure: Fibre Channel isn’t going away anytime soon. Deployment figures show that enterprise reliance on the protocol for valuable SAN services is actually growing. And the reasons are not strictly technology oriented, either. There are political/behavioral issues, as well. SAN and LAN are typically the responsibility of different managers at a given enterprise; how willing will the SAN manager be to entrust her or his “production storage traffic” to an unproven protocol that is being touted by the LAN group?

The case is that the data center is likely to be a heterogeneous protocol environment for years to come. So, what does this mean for data-center managers who are determined to realize the benefits of server and I/O consolidation, simplified management and power-cost reduction through innovations such as server virtualization? Those benefits are available—but not for the foreseeable future by merely deploying DCB or some other convergence fabric and leaving behind all the tried-and-true protocols that are serving enterprises today. WDM unifies native protocols at the physical layer, and a well-conceived implementation can deliver the differentiated degrees of tremendous bandwidth, ultra-low latency, modular security and other qualities that data-center managers need for their most innovative applications.