Feature

Convergence is the word

The LAN equipment market is being driven by network expansion and the deployment of converged networks that bring together voice, data and video. By Faiz Askari

Observe Indian business and you will see that organisations are adopting an organised mode of functioning. Pick any vertical—retail, travel, automotive, textiles or infrastructure and this holds true. Organisations across verticals are investing heavily on IT infrastructure. Be it banking, retail, travel, FMCG or ITES, all these segments are upgrading their LAN infrastructure as they expand. IT managers are talking about technologies such as Gigabit Ethernet and LAN messenger.

IDC says that the LAN market is growing at 30 percent year on year. Although the final numbers for the LAN equipment market for 2006 are yet to be announced, there are some interesting statistics available on QoQ growth. The LAN equipment market for the first three quarters of the calendar year that was (Q1 06 to Q3 2006) as per IDC estimates was worth $500 million. LAN equipment sales are projected to be $650 million for CY 2006.

In Q1, as per IDC, the market was estimated to be $170 million reflecting a growth of 21 percent over Q4 2005. The switching market grew rapidly both in terms of value and unit shipments. Switched Fast Ethernet contributed the biggest chunk. 10G Ethernet Switches that were introduced in Q405 grew by over 350 percent in Q106. The steep growth reported in switches was on account of huge buying by educational institutions under the Technical Education Quality Improvement Programme (TEQIP). It also helped that Q1 was the last quarter of the fiscal year.

The router market was flat in terms of value growth. In Q2 06 there was a dip of 9 percent over the preceding quarter.

In terms of technology, 10 Gigabit and Gigabit Ethernet switches are growing robustly although Switched Fast Ethernet contributed the maximum. In Q3 06 the growth in the market was a result of continued investments by telcos and also on account of some big SWAN (State Wide Area Networking) deals that got executed in the JAS quarter. The growth also marks healthy shipments after a huge drop in the AMJ quarter.

"The acceptance of data centres, enhanced security, growth of wireless and mobile communications, Unified Communications and the need to maintain Quality of Service have collectively driven the LAN market to new heights" - Ranajoy Punja Vice President-Marketing India & SAARC Cisco

IT/ITES (Information Technology Enabled Services) organisations such as Infosys, IBM, Wipro, TCS and many more kept on investing, as they expanded and revamped their networking infrastructure. JAS witnessed some big deals by telcos, mainly in Metro-Ethernet projects. Providers like Bharti, Reliance and BSNL invested in Metro-Ethernet projects.

"LAN applications have changed drastically over the past two years. Advanced applications— VoIP and IP phones and video conferencing— have driven demand for high performance LANs" - Sajan Paul Head- Technology & Consulting-Enterprise Solutions Nortel India

Ranajoy Punja, vice president-Marketing India & SAARC at Cisco says, “Overall, the trend is positive. It can easily be predicted that LAN market has a promising future ahead in India. Customers are continuing to see IT as an important asset and the importance of networking has been acknowledged.”

Sajan Paul, head-Technology & Consulting-Enterprise Solutions, Nortel India says, “The IT/ ITES/BPO segment is driving the LAN equipment market. Small and medium businesses (SMB) are also growing rapidly; this segment has adopted and identified IT infrastructure as a core enabler of its business growth. This leads to a growth opportunity of LAN applications that have changed drastically over the past two years. However, this growth is because of advanced applications such as VoIP and IP phones, video conferencing and other applications that have driven demand for high performance LANs.”

S Garde, sales manager at Enterasys adds, “IT growth in the government sector as seen by State Wide Metropolitan LANS (SWAN) projects and the defence sector wiring up its IT applications are contributing to the LAN market’s growth.”

Tushar Sighat, vice president, Channel Business, D-Link India Ltd, says, “The ADSL wave is also opening up a lot of opportunities in the home user and SOHO segments with many new applications. Years ago we used to categories three to four node networks as a small office. Just imagine today all homes are striving towards two to three PCs and are as good as small offices. Hence the home users will be a big market and will fuel the LAN equipment market. I have come across companies in other countries who have their entire focus on the home and SOHO segments.” e-governance will further drive the LAN equipment market.

Altaf Ansari, product manager-Networking & Corporate Solutions, ASUSTeK Computer Inc adds, “As the price gap between Gigabit and Fast Ethernet dwindles, the advantages of Gigabit Ethernet outweigh the price increases. In essence, Gigabit offers better value than Fast Ethernet.” Years ago, viruses and hacking threats were a rare thing, and today it is commonplace. Both individuals and corporate users need to be concerned about ever growing threats of viruses and unwanted intrusions into the LAN.

Punja says, “Advances in technology have become a driving force. The acceptance of data centres, adaptation of high end networks, enhanced security, growth of wireless and mobile communications in an enterprise, ability of LAN to support Unified Communications and most of all the need to maintain Quality of Service have collectively driven the LAN market to new heights.”

Gopal Sapharu, deputy marketing Manager, Allied Telesyn says, “Organisational demand for bandwidth, diverse functionality and the need to integrate new complex technologies and support new business applications is on the rise.” Networks need to be extremely scalable, integrating complex technologies and supporting new business applications. Security is also a challenge with daily threats from crackers and viruses. IT managers have to face the challenge of decreasing budgets while at the same time finding ways to decreasing their response time to capitalize on change and consequent opportunities. Growth is increasingly going to be driven by broadband usage and the SOHO market will grow by over 100 percent. Meanwhile acceptability of networking in the SMB segment will rise. Class B and Class C cities will be the ones to watch out for growth in 2007.

The Ethernet Way

Ethernet speeds have been ramping up faster than Moore’s Law. 1G to desktop and 10G in the aggregation nodes are part of most LAN designs. “Applications such as VoIP, video conferencing, Webcasting and training have raised the bar when it comes to LAN performance. On the other hand, service providers find it cost-effective to use 10G LAN instead of SDH (Synchronous Digital Hierarchy). In metro networks, 10G over DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) is a common design,” says Paul.

"The ADSL wave is also opening up a lot of opportunities in the home user and SOHO segments with many new applications" - Tushar Sighat Vice President, Channel Business D-Link India Ltd

Sighat says, “Demand for bandwidth only grows. We have larger files, new applications and the like. Also there is the urge to develop products with better features and speed.” These factors are driving 10G switch sales. 10G is the next step. Also with Unified Communications to be deployed with voice, data and video along with large application files, 10 G is the right answer. Sighat adds, “This will take time. 1G is in the process of establishing itself on the desktop. 10G will play a role in the backbone for corporate networks and will no longer be a technology that is the sole preserve of telcos.”

Talking about the growing acceptance of 10G networks in India, Ansari says, “As Gigabit becomes commonplace, the need arises for higher capacity uplink between networking devices. Moreover, it is more economical to use 10G today as it is available over copper.” However Punja says, “10G Ethernet deployments are mainly done at the server level. The technology is at an early stage but customers are showing interest.” He believes that in a year or so, 10 G will achieve considerable market penetration provided that the price point comes down. As of now, it is an expensive proposition for most organisations. Once the price comes down and the technology becomes affordable, 10 G Ethernet with carve out a niche for itself.

10G: Lowest cost per bit

Paul says, “10G is driven by the ‘cost per bit’ model for it has the lowest cost per bit when compared to any other technology at this speed. Applications that demand high bandwidth are driving demand for 10G.” Most 10G integrated switches comes with additional functionality such as intrusion detection, filtering, end point security and the like.

Sapharu says, “Today technology like Triple Play or Quad play solutions take advantage of 10G. Interactive IP TV, Video on Demand, IP radio, Mobile IP, IP Classrooms, Video Conferencing, IP surveillance are some application that require a 10G backbone. So as the contents and applications for these technologies grows, the demand for 10G will grow correspondingly.”

Garde says, “Availability, price and newer applications are the contributing factors. Security features have to be built into the LAN architecture. However, the identity management (authentication and threat assessment) and policy at edge or distribution are still required.”

Routers: integrated multiple capabilities

Integrated routers that sport capabilities such as VPN, security and wireless all on a single device are popular as enterprises deploy them in branch networks. For in a branch office, time is at a premium and integrated routers allow enterprises to overcome the lack of IT staff at branches with easy to deploy (plug n play) hardware that requires little maintenance and is remote manageable to boot.

Broadband growth and availability make it easier for SMBs to look at remote branch connectivity with a lower price tag. They need a device which is an all in one device providing VPN, broadband routing, security, switching and wireless; one which can be remotely managed and configured. All these factors are propelling SMBs to adopt integrated routers.

Sighat says, “We have been hearing about network-in-a-box for a while now. Integrated routers are welcome but a lot depends on the handling capabilities and processing speeds of such products. I believe there will be users for both the integrated as well as standalone boxes.”

Ansari adds, “We foresee that the SME and SOHO networking products will increasingly sport Integrated Services. Currently, we see products with features such as IDS, IPS, anti-virus, anti-spam, firewall and VPN, as well as VoIP services all on one appliance. We still believe that large enterprises will stick to dedicated devices.”

Emphasising the importance of integrated routers in the SMB market, Paul says, “Integrated routers are uniquely positioned for the SMB segment where pricing and simplicity are the principal considerations. However, this is not something which is used by large customers and service providers.”

Sapharu feels that as IT infrastructure outsourcing grows, service providers will look at integrated routers and similar equipment for these ease deployment, can be easily managed, reduce cost of freight and inventory and bring down the cost of skilled manpower.

No more network congestion

Network congestion is an universal problem, Ansari says “To help our customers to solve this problem, we have products that support CoS/QoS (Class of Service/Quality of Service) prioritisation with bandwidth control. In addition to this, bandwidth aggregators are also available.”

Sighat says that each and every network is different and requires its own solution. The technologies discussed earlier such as 10G in the backbone and 1G to the desktop will help overcome network congestion. What is needed is intelligent traffic management based on the time of the day and network admission control. Nortel’s has intelligent application switches are capable of granular bandwidth management and provide protection from applications that try to hog bandwidth. Features such as network admission control and end point security can ensure that only legitimate users access the network.

Ranjan Chopra, CMD, Team Computers says, “There are various solutions available for this problem. One is to upgrade the existing network from 1G to 10G, and at the same time, implement load balancing for all mission critical devices and servers.”

Message in a LAN bottle

LAN messengers are already being used in corporate circles. Altaf says, “Since its introduction, messaging has been a convenient way to communicate in real-time. New features of messaging make it attractive to both individuals and corporate users.”

According to Paul, LAN messengers are typically peer to peer communicators without any server assistance. These are typically restricted to a single broadcast domain. There are many other advanced communication tools like Microsoft LCS, Nortel MCS and the like.

LAN instant messaging software is designed for use within an office network and subnet. LAN Instant Messenger software is a safer alternative to public Internet messenger software.

Paul says, “The challenges are mostly with regard to endpoint security and user authentication. With virus threats and denial of service attacks being prevalent, it needs thoughtful design and maintenance of the LAN infrastructure.”

Highlighting the positive points of LAN messenger, Chopra adds, “An organisation can organise group discussions or interactive sessions involving departments or individuals. When a new member is included, he can view the archive of the ongoing topic. Data could be transferred during the session. A LAN Messenger also enables voice conversation between two users.”