Emerging Markets Service Providers: Network simplification accelerates roll out of new services

Thursday, 01 May 2008 01:00

The market opportunity in the emerging markets is clear, especially in countries where businesses and individuals demand connectivity and where widespread transformation, such as deregulation, is underway. Indeed, many economies are growing and governments plan to narrow the digital divide by providing widespread broadband services.

It has also been widely observed that service providers in emerging markets don't have many of the legacy technologies that have been integrated into network architectures of mature markets over the years. As a result, emerging market service providers should be able to avoid legacy technologies as well as legacy network structures and implement far simpler, flatter, yet more intelligent architectures. This new generation of architectures - moving the intelligence into the network and close to the end user - will enable service providers to adopt new, innovative business models and roll out the latest services more rapidly. Services, such as public safety and e-government, that can have such a profound effect on countries and people alike.

Network simplification is at the heart of this new generation of architectures, and addresses the business issues that confront today's modern service provider community. This includes the drive to reduce Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of a network. Simple, flexible networks allow them to implement new services quickly and benefit from the increase in revenues that result. This means that service providers' Return-on-investment (ROI) is realized faster.

How do service providers evolve and simplify their networks?  Are the necessary technologies and innovative products are out there to achieve this?

Flatter network architectures drive simplification

Smart networks empower true application innovation, allowing service providers to combine "all-media services" that include voice, video and data. TelePresence is a good example of application innovation, where voice, video and data have been fully integrated together to deliver a whole new experience to the end customer. It becomes a new service. Not three layers of services (voice plus video plus data) cobbled together, but an integration of all three. Evolution of applications, such as TelePresence, is key to driving collaboration and mobility.

Another benefit of network simplification is that it allows applications to directly access the fundamental service components within the network, such as security and deep packet inspection that can be re-packaged into profitable applications by the service provider. These services are embedded directly within the network, allowing the applications to run at truly high speed and to scale in a very linear fashion.

Service Providers will have the ability to package these "slices" of service components to meet the specific needs of a vertical market, application or customer. Compared to the old way of doing things, new services will be activated with a keyboard instead of dispatching an engineer offsite to get it done. 

Network simplification and common intelligence also implies service convergence, making a service available to end users across any access network. For instance, a service normally available in the office will be accessed over a wireless LAN, a broadband connection, or a mobile network. All these access networks can transfer the service and the state of connection transparently as the user roams.

To make the best network choice for their specific requirements, service providers need to understand what the foundation of a flatter, simpler network might be.

Simplicity through innovation

As part of the evolution to an even simpler network, intelligence has to be pushed as close to the network's edge as possible -- actually embedded in the network using next-generation edge routers. Embedded services will provide functionalities such as Internet access, multi-service gateway, session border controller, firewall and VPN termination.

This integrated system approach simplifies operation, reduces costs, and will enable more flexible, efficient, and cost-effective delivery of complex "any play" (voice, video, data and mobility) services. At the same time, it also means that an unprecedented amount of processing power must move to the edge with it.  

So the time has arrived to define a new category of router - one that provides not just the built-in services characteristic of the converged network but also industry-leading performance, reliability, and network simplification in a compact form factor. Because of its location in the network, the converged services router must be lightweight and compact -- no forklift installations are in its future. It must consume very little power and be priced to provide a quick return on investment. In addition, it must be capable of handling video-level bandwidth requirements, meet the most stringent reliability requirements and accommodate new -- and often unforeseen -- services when they come online.

It's an aggressive feature list that demands a new level of performance from the processor chip, a processor that must handle on the order of 15 million packets per second with multiple service features enabled. The converged network router will have processing power equivalent to 20 dual-core servers, use 10 times less space and consume 38,990 fewer KwH per year. A standard telco rack of them will be able to transmit the collected works of Shakespeare 5,250 times every second.

Cisco engineers have an unrivaled track record in this design space. Their latest achievement will be integrated into in emerging markets architectures within a year.  

About the author

Andreas Enotiadis is Director of Service Provider Solutions for Emerging Markets at Cisco Systems.

More info: 

• The Making of the Cisco ASR1000 router and Quantum Flow Processor

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