Overcoming the Obstacles

This is where microwave steps in. Even in the most challenging of circumstances, the combination of digital radio and Carrier Ethernet services can offer excellent flexibility, reliability, bandwidth and quality of service at a realistic price:

• Right-of-way: Because microwave uses radio spectrum, it can navigate physical barriers such as private property
• Service-aware traffic management allows you to differentiate voice and data packets by type, to avoid bottlenecks and smooth demand.
• Rural and third world: In these environments, often with poor legacy communications, microwave extends your connectivity reach
• Planning issues: Digital radio leapfrogs complex planning approvals that can slow the progress of fiber or copper installations in densely populated urban areas
• Temporary links: Digital radio is a great choice for temporary sporting or entertainment events
• Physical hurdles: Water, roads and challenging terrain can all complicate, or defeat, terrestrial installations
• Security concerns: The threat of human or environmental interference, especially the increasing theft of copper in some countries, makes traditional installations more risky and less advisable

Low Cost Gigabit Ethernet Services

Today’s digital radio technologies are capable of providing rapid connectivity and delivering Gigabit Ethernet services across any terrain, over significant distances. Recent technical developments also enable digital radio to function in lower frequency bands without line-of-sight. Plus, in many environments, this technology can provide the lowest cost per bit for Ethernet service transport.

Remote Site Connectivity

Here are just some of the ways you can use microwave technology to connect the remotest or most rural of locations:

• Broadband networks to support the conversion to digital TV
• Broadband networks to support DSL access in rural areas by overcoming the distance limitations of the DSLAM and broadband backbone
• Fiber backup routes to provide redundancy, diversity and network protection
• Network extensions to reach remote locations

So, whether you’re looking to extend service in areas where fiber and copper are not available, or need a high-performance back-up route to ensure failsafe communications, digital radio is a highly competitive choice with an impressive performance history.

For more information about Microwave Technologies for Carrier Ethernet Services, download this MEF document

About WireIE: We deliver carrier-grade Transparent Ethernet Solutions backed by SLAs. With a custom blend of fiber and digital to suit your circumstances, we transform, extend and support your communications networks in rural and remote areas. +1.905.882.4660 | www.wireie.com | info@wireie.com

Ethernet Evolution
StarLAN was the first implementation of Ethernet and used twisted pair copper wire. Known as 1BASE5 and developed by the IEEE as 802.3e in the mid-1980s, StarLAN ran at speeds of up to 1 Mbit/s. In light of the circuit switched, voice orientation of networks at that point, developers of 1BASE5 wanted to reuse previously installed cabling for telephony (PBX and/or key systems), thus minimizing the need to rewire office buildings and other enterprises. As the name implies, StarLAN was built around a hub-and-spoke topology – a direct emulation of circuit switched voice systems dominant at the time.

10BASE-T & Beyond
Introduced in the early 1990s, 10BASE-T supported up to 10 Mbit/s on 4 pair (8 conductor) twisted copper terminated on the now universally recognized RJ-45 modular connector. Both half and full duplex is supported as is the case with 100BASE-T (100 Mbit/s), and 1000BASE-T at 1Gbit/s (GigE). More than evolutionary, 10BASE-T arguably ushered in the broad adoption of LANs in the business environment.

10BASE-T was initially delivered over a shared coaxial cable in a bus topology, emulating a data radio network environment not unlike AlohaNet (described in the previous post). Thus the Ether in Ethernet. CSMA/CD played an essential role in managing channel contention resulting from packet collisions. Topologically, it was impractical to segment the network and as such, any number of single points of failure could bring down the entire network.

There were inefficiencies inherent in early Ethernet. Since a single coaxial cable carried all network communication (slotted Aloha), information sent by one device would be received by all devices on the network. It was the job of the Attachment Unit Interface (AUI) – essentially a pre-Network Interface Card (NIC) – to reject all traffic, other than that intended for the device it was connected to. Also, by confining all network traffic to a single shared cable, bandwidth can be quickly exhausted. Exacerbating the finite bandwidth was the broadcast nature wherein all stations on the network were sent all data regardless of whether it was intended for them or not. Finally, while elegant, CSMA/CD by its very nature has an impact on channel efficiency.

Switched Ethernet
As 10BASE-T hubs and bridges matured, the concept of Switched Ethernet developed. Switched Ethernet is significant in that it takes the concept of Token-Ring’s once superior network speed through the concept of one session (i.e.: two network devices) accessing all the LAN bandwidth for a given instant, as opposed to sharing network bandwidth as was the case with the broadcast model. Modern Ethernet switches could manage thousands of concurrent network segments. From the switch’s point of view, the only device on each segment is the end station’s Layer 1 interface (NIC). The switch’s intelligence is dedicated to managing frame delivery over the appropriate segment – often managing hundreds or thousands of segments in concurrence.

The Journey Continues
Ethernet has earned its universal adoption in the enterprise because of its speed, reliability, flexibility, uniformity and operational simplicity. The journey to ubiquitous Ethernet is advancing rapidly with Carrier Ethernet solutions such as WireIE’s Transparent Ethernet Solutions™ leading the way.

Ethernet is ubiquitous. It’s in our businesses, schools, hospitals and homes. It’s in our cars, and it’s even the nerve system for the latest fly-by-wire airliners. Ethernet dominates in the datacenters where Internet and World Wide Web content is stored and served. Few would dispute that our modern world of communications runs on Ethernet.

Why Ethernet? In a few words; seamless, universal connectivity… There are certainly many secondary advantages, but this ‘plug and play’ aspect makes Ethernet particularly compelling when compared with other methods.

A wise person once said; “You need to know where you’ve been in order to know where you’re going.” Ethernet has been around a long time, but it’s entree into the world of telecommunications is fairly recent.
Ethernet (IEEE 802.3) was developed in the mid 1970s by Xerox. It was largely based on the Aloha system developed at the University of Hawaii.

AlohaNet, as it was called, used UHF radio as a data communications network medium. Transmission of packets across the radio channel was managed by Aloha’s random access contention algorithm. In the event of two (or more) data packets being sent on the same communication channel at the same instant, a collision occurs, the packets get corrupted, and no data is exchanged. Aloha manages this inevitability through the use of a random access timer. Should a collision be detected, a jam signal is sent over the network, notifying all other devices of the collision and to wait before sending further packets. The senders affected by the collision will then set a random self-timer to resume transmission, thus reducing the likelihood of a repeat collision. This mechanism is known as Collision Detection (CD).

To compliment CD, Ethernet uses a mechanism known as Carrier Sense Multiple Access (CSMA) – commonly referred to as CSMA/CD. Combined with the benefits of Collision Detection, the CSMA function stipulates that sending data communications equipment must ‘listen’ to the channel prior to transmitting a packet.

In the early days of Local Area Networking, Ethernet competed with IBM’s Token Ring networking standard. Considered very efficient in many types of network configurations, Token Ring still fell into obscurity as most leading vendors other than IBM placed their loyalties in Ethernet. The galvanizer was the IEEE’s pursuit of a single LAN standard which for a number of reasons went to Ethernet in 1982. Global approval of Ethernet as IEEE 802.3 was granted in 1984.

In the ensuing years, Ethernet has become ubiquitous. This ubiquity has led to powerful network hardware at incredibly low prices – all in an ever shrinking form factor per unit performance. The vast majority of Internet services are hosted on Ethernet networks, as are the user communities linking to those services.

Now a mature, universal Local Area Network (LAN) access standard, hardware supporting Ethernet (Switches and Network Interface Cards etc.) is commoditized and as such comparatively inexpensive and largely self-configuring. The entire TCP/IP suite is seamlessly supported by Ethernet, carried on various media ranging from CAT5e cable to fiber to digital microwave/radio.

In the next installment we’ll look at the evolution of Ethernet. That will set us up to explore the reconciliation between modern day Ethernet as a packet based protocol, and the time domain orientation of legacy telecommunications infrastructure.

Just click here for the report and be sure to visit the WireIE Resource Centre for this and other materials on next generation networks.

A case in point is Apple’s iPad. Launched a year ago, the original iPad had a 1 GHz single core processor. A mere year later, Apple last week announced iPad 2 which boasts a dual core processor along with a nine fold increase in graphics processing capability. All of this at the same price yet in a form factor 1/3 thinner than its still novel predecessor. And a year later, Apple no longer owns the entire tablet market. Familiar names such as HP, LG, Motorola, RIM and Samsung are offering tablets with impressive specifications — all supported by powerful dual core processors.

The increase in processing speed, memory capacity and other performance related specifications align with Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore’s law which essentially asserts that processing and memory performance improves exponentially per unit cost over the course of roughly one year. In addition, while battery technology is comparatively slow in its evolution, we’ve seen enormous improvements in power efficiency in microprocessors and RAM – allowing for device portability. Deloitte predicts that smart phones and tablets will outsell all other computer categories combined in 2011. Device portability is now an expectation of the consumer, and increasingly the enterprise as well.

With all this horsepower in the hands of the user, why is cloud computing so compelling? While the three previous installments in this series touched on cloud computing benefits such as real time collaboration, ubiquitous access to applications and user files on any device, perhaps the most compelling attraction is the exceptionally low cost of entry. Cloud computing user devices need be nothing more than a hardware platform functioning as an ultra thin client. Equally attractive, cloud computing is client platform agnostic – both from a hardware and operating system perspective.

For example, a user at head office on the east coast creates a spreadsheet in the cloud using her office notebook running Windows. Later on at lunch, she reviews the spreadsheet on her Xoom tablet and makes a few changes before discussing it with her colleague out on the west coast. Later on and now from home, that same user accesses the spreadsheet on her brand new MacBook Pro running OS/10. As she makes some final changes, her colleague from the west coast has the spreadsheet loaded on his office desktop running Windows. Through real time collaboration he adds the remaining numbers — the spreadsheet now ready for review by the CEO. The CEO is on an ecotour in Central America but is able to stop in a small village where there’s an Internet cafe. On an old PC running Windows 98 and with dial-up Internet access, the CEO pulls up the spreadsheet, reviews it, adds some comments and returns to his adventure.

Combining portability with a more ‘traditional’ user interface such as a low cost netbook is a very good platform for cloud based office productivity applications such as spreadsheet and document preparation. Even presentations are simple to prepare using cloud based applications.

Impact on the Network Operator

As the chart below depicts, cloud computing transfers virtually all of the burden away from the consumer and into the hands of the host (most often a webco), along with the network operator/carrier.

Cost Distribution of Cloud Computing

Clearly the end user enjoys very low fixed and variable costs. With service delivery via the Internet, virtually any device with a standards compliant browser can be used. In addition, cloud oriented ‘apps’ for smart phones and tablets continue to emerge – almost on a daily basis.

The aggregate cost burden for cloud computing service delivery (both capital and operational) is largely absorbed by the host webco and/or the network operator. With that in mind, cost mitigation and monetization strategies are being investigated by webcos and network operators alike.

Cloud Computing Cost Distribution

For network operators, an opportunity to repatriate some lost revenue from over-the-top users is one possibility. Many cloud computing webcos see benefit in dispersing their hardware assets beyond their own data centres. In the trend towards network edge oriented service delivery, installing an instance of the webco’s cloud services in a network operator’s facilities is becoming a compelling idea. This approach increases redundancy and geographic diversity for the webco, but it also disperses the global cost burden.

In turn, the network operator benefits from revenue sharing, or some other revenue generating mechanism. Co-branding, along with other enhanced marketing opportunities also become possible under such collaboration.

As the industry has learned in the past decade however, it is essential the user experience of the cloud service not be compromised in attempts to build walled gardens, or through attempts to offer reverse over-the-top services in competition with the webco itself. Users are sophisticated and know they have a choice. Importantly, users typically associate cloud computing value with the webco as opposed to the network operator. The enormous success of smart phone ‘apps’ stores offered by Apple, Google, RIM and others demonstrate that network operators are in fact cognizant of where their value is and equally important, where it isn’t. With that in mind, a great opportunity for network operator/webco collaboration awaits.

As a wholesale network operator in Canada, WireIE is capable of hosting Cloud services as a complement to our Transparent Ethernet Solutions.

The general consensus is that MSN’s Hotmail was the original cloud computing service – although it wasn’t regarded as such when it launched in July, 1996. Google raised the bar in terms of capability by introducing their Docs & Spreadsheets (now simply called Google Docs) cloud service. Taking direct aim at Microsoft’s hold on the Office Suite space, Google Docs offered less functionality – the thinking being that a simplified feature set is actually an advantage for the vast majority of users. Studies have shown that 80 percent of the traditional desktop application user community only uses 20 percent of the available features. The busyness of the user interface becomes an impediment for these users. Offsetting the “dumbed-down” feature set is the ability to:

• Collaborate on a file with other people on a real time basis regardless of where the participants are located.
• Access the documents from any browser on any OS from anywhere there is Internet connectivity.
• Use Google Docs at no charge.
• Know that you will always be using the latest, most secure version of the application.
• Know that user file backup practices offered by Google are going to be more reliable and secure than those followed in many homes and businesses.

Microsoft’s Office 365 offers tight integration between its desktop software model and its cloud services – essentially the best of both worlds – a richer feature set combined with the benefits of working in the cloud.

Dropbox and Carbonite, on the other hand, offer a more basic service by providing automatic, unattended synchronization and back up of user files to the cloud. Encryption options are available as are file sharing options with Dropbox.

The following video from the Pentasoft Channel describes the philosophy of cloud computing by concentrating on the three pillars of:

• Virtualization
• Utility Computing – Distributed Server Capacity
• Software as a Service (SaaS)

Click here to view the embedded video.

As the World Wide Web rapidly evolves to HTML5 many resources currently found in a client operating system are being moved out to the cloud. A simple example is cloud based fonts. Prior to HTML5, a web designer was limited to the fonts residing in the site visitor’s operating system. Among many other things, HTML5 allows new font sets to be loaded from the cloud. In fact, as we move to HTML5, the very tools used to develop websites are moving to the cloud.

An intriguing concept is Google Cloud Print. As a companion to Google Chrome, Cloud Print places printer drivers and security credentials in the cloud. Printers are then mapped to the appropriate cloud profile. Not only does this enable printing from virtually any computer anywhere, it also has the potential to redefine the way we use legacy services such as facsimile and the postal service.

In April 2010, the Eyjafjallajökull ice cap in Iceland erupted causing days of flight cancellations and delays for both passengers and air cargo. Some of the affected cargo was trans-Atlantic mail. Had we evolved to a cloud print world, much of the mail would have been unaffected because it would have printed locally – be it at a postal centre, or at the actual addressee’s home or office.

The world of Cloud Computing is advancing rapidly. Derrick Harris of Gigaom recently assembled a list of 8 cloud companies he feels we should be watching in 2011. Just click here to read his analysis.

In our final installment we’ll take a look at the bandwidth implications as a result of the boom in cloud computing.

Many have pointed out the philosophical similarities between Cloud Computing and the days prior to broad adoption of the personal computer.

• Application hosting, data processing and storage were centralized on mainframe computer platforms.
• The user community accessed these resources through a standards-based (albeit proprietary) communications network infrastructure.
• The computing power of the user terminal was limited relative to the mainframe (admittedly, a huge understatement).

That’s pretty much where the similarities end. We now live in a world with near ubiquitous access to the Internet using it’s suite of standardized protocols under TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol). Over and above the communications advantages, the Internet itself is now home to an infinite array of resources. Equally significant is the parallel evolution (arguably revolution) of end user devices. Unlike the monochromatic glow of yesterday’s text based dumb terminal, today’s world offers an incomparable variety of feature-rich, graphically based end user devices supported by numerous operating systems – all with their own attributes. Add to that the wireless revolution with its mobilization of the Internet and one would be hard pressed to draw further parallels.

Cloud computing is compelling for a number of good reasons:

• Hardware, application software (including updates) and system security are administered by the host.
• Many cloud computing environments support rich multiparty collaboration.
• Barriers to entry are comparatively low and affordable.
• User device agnostic: supports any device equipped with a standards compliant browser.
• CPU power of end user equipment is very low.
• Very little RAM is required in end user equipment.
• Virtually no local storage requirements beyond operation system and web browser. User file storage is hosted in the cloud as opposed to on a local disk drive or file server.
• Power hungry and comparatively slow hard disk drives are being replaced with fast, solid state storage in Cloud Computing user devices. Instant booting, and much longer battery life are two of the most apparent benefits.
• Portabilty, Mobility, Ubiquity: Cloud resources are available anywhere there is internet access.
• Generally very low network bandwidth required by the end user.

Dedicated Cloud Platforms

One of the more intriguing Cloud Computing developments has been the emergence of Google’s Chrome O/S. Chrome O/S devices will have all the hardware attributes listed above, but in the spirit of a complete Cloud Computing experience, Chrome O/S is, as the name implies, is an Operating System hard coded into the hardware. Alone, a Chrome O/S product is of limited utility. Add a connection to the Internet – even a relatively slow one – and the user instantly has access to all those applications, not to mention the web via the integrated Chrome browser.

Initial reviews of Chrome O/S have been mixed. Regardless, no one can argue that from a conceptual perspective, Chrome O/S is a very compelling solution for many user categories, students for example. Chrome O/S takes the netbook/sub-notebook category to a new level. The video below from Epipheo Studios succinctly describes the thinking behind the development of Chrome O/S.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Rumours abound that Google will merge Chrome O/S’ functionality into its very popular and broadly available Android mobile operating system. Time will tell… In the meantime, Microsoft has leveraged their strong position in feature-rich desktop applications. By integrating Office 2010 desktop with Microsoft’s cloud environment known as Office Web Apps, users can enjoy document sharing and collaboration, regardless of location, even when a connection to the Internet is temporarily out of reach. Once reconnected to the Internet, sophisticated synchronization automatically reconciles any updated content.