With more than 12 years in existence, Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) isn’t a new technology, but it also isn’t a “table stakes” feature found in every network. MPLS was originally created for large service providers to speed up the flow of network traffic and ultimately simplify manageability. As with many new technologies, MPLS certainly wasn’t cheap when it was first introduced (in truth, MPLS prices were artificially inflated). And it was initially perceived as being complicated to set up and refine…ironic considering that it was designed to improve and simplify the network infrastructure. As with most technologies, MPLS eventually evolved into a solution that has become relatively inexpensive and straightforward to install. Even with all these improvements, however, there is still a lingering perception that MPLS is costly and that only large service providers have the need, know-how, and deep pockets to install it and achieve its full range of benefits.

The fact of the matter is that MPLS is flexible, fast, and cost-effective. It enables network segmentation and quality of service for latency-sensitive applications such as business-class voice and high-quality video. Today, Brocade has many enterprise customers that are taking advantage of these “service provider” capabilities and beginning their own corporate implementations, especially in distributed enterprises. Industry analysts predict double-digit growth for Carrier Ethernet in the coming years, and Brocade is dedicated to helping carriers transition to the advantages of the higher bandwidth and lower cost that Ethernet provides. Brocade Ethernet solutions have a proven track record in service provider networks—with more than 5000 Brocade routers deployed worldwide in carrier networks and Brocade solutions managing traffic in more than 70 MPLS deployments.

Bringing all this to reality, the Brocade NetIron CER 2000 Router, our newest router offering, provides high performance and scalable MPLS in an ultra-compact 1U form factor…a virtually unheard of combination until now. Demand for this new product has been startlingly high, especially for providers that are driving MPLS closer to the edge of their networks, delivering video over IP multicast and Virtual Private LAN Services (VPLS).

From an industry perspective, the NetIron CER 2000 is the only router of its size that offers 10 Gigabit Ethernet and is priced at just a fraction of the cost of traditional cumbersome MPLS routers. In fact, it has twice the routing capacity, offers 33 percent space savings and 66 percent power savings, and provides almost three times better forwarding performance at half the price of comparable solutions—making it ideal for cost-effective cloud computing, for instance. These numbers equal not only CapEx and OpEx cost savings but also translate into the flexibility to innovate and deliver the types of services customers have been reading about for years but could never order. The result? An increasingly bright future for MPLS in both service provider and distributed enterprise environments.

Here are some of my comments on last week's announcement between Brocade and Dell on the expansion of our existing partnership with the goal of creating the Efficient Enterprise.

Mike

Brocade is known for a couple of things – building Extraordinary Networks, and developing and maintaining close partnerships with other companies in ways that benefit customers  beyond the benefits that they would receive if Brocade “made it all here.” One of the areas in which we partner closely with other vendors to deliver a complete solution is campus wireless access, or WiFi.  Our focus on cross-compatibility not only among our own products but with many other vendors makes our combined offering here stronger and more flexible than single-vendor solutions.   With the increasingly distributed enterprise, the benefits of a combined WiFi offering are absolutely clear.

The driver for the growth in enterprise wireless   to this point is primarily due to convenience; the increased needs of a mobile enterprise. Moving forward, one of the major trends is that  wireless  is becoming an integral part of a networking infrastructure as opposed to something that is really built for convenience and casual use. This is particularly important as the new wireless standard built in 802.11n begin to emerge, as opposed to the past standards – 802.11a, and 802.11b/g. – 802.11n can now carry traffic comparable to your wired local area network speed, which is 100 megabits per second (Mbps) and above while enhancing the robustness and range of the wireless signal. So potentially users can actually leverage wireless access to access mission critical applications and access data which normally would be too bulky or too large to be downloaded through the legacy wireless technology. With 802.11n some organizations and enterprise may actually choose to bypass the wiring of the building and go completely wireless.

As this trend increases, we will continue to see customers source and fund the deployment of wired and wireless networks at the same time, vs. doing what they have traditionally done and  treating them separately. In this context, it would seem better for them to get the entire solution from a single vendor, preferably with unique value-added functionalities – It is. It might also seem that it would be better to have the entire solution developed by that vendor –  It’s not.

Vendors who would offer you their, and only their wares from end to end in the development of a local area network are not necessarily selling you the best products for your needs, but, potentially, products that meet the lowest requirements of the stated need at the highest margins for themselves.  The Brocade approach, on the other hand, is to continuously survey the landscape for the best available technology, regardless of the source, establish its interoperability with all of your various network components, build strong relationships with the vendors who supply it and deploy it at the best possible cost/performance ratio. This strategy is enabled by the fact that we do not need to subsidize other areas of the company by charging you more for portions of an end-to-end solution than the market demands, under the guise and per the assertion that, “If we make it all it must be the best.” In fact, we have an increasing number of customers who did buy into that, and who were greatly disappointed later, and who are now turning to us for a complete replacement of parts of, if not all of their network infrastructure.

While we are happy to help in that regard, we’d rather work with them to get it right the first time – selecting from best-of-breed vendors, working to ensure interoperability and availability in IP networks with the same intensive processes we always have in the data center, and extending our partnership beyond our technology partners and to the end users themselves.