“It’s time to rethink the network,” said Hossein Eslambolchi, President of AT&T Labs and CTO & CIO of AT&T, in a keynote address to the Burton Group’s Catalyst Conference in San Francisco. Eslambolchi noted the huge investment of intellectual and financial capital over the decades to build a core network with the premise of selling ports on the switch. All this must change, he argues, as service providers evolve their business models from just selling bandwidth pipes to providing higher value customer applications. Eslambolchi said a two-layer network architecture is emerging: the physical layer consists of an intelligent optical network overlayed by a global IP/MPLS switched infrastructure; the logical layer consists of rich application and mediation services. Getting there is not so simple. The cold reality, Eslambolchi noted, is that old networks never die. As a result, AT&T runs a myriad of diverse networks, protocols, management systems and billing platforms with a high fixed cost. To move to the next step, AT&T has adopted two principles:
the Concept of One, which aims to simply the network architecture by consolidating onto a common infrastructure
the Concept of Zero, which aims to bring full automation for every human-to-computer interaction currently required for setting up and maintaining network services. This involves e-bonding between AT&T’s network and the customer’s own network management systems. The goal is zero-defects and zero-cycle time. Eslambolchi observed that building a network with six nines reliability really doesn’t benefit the customer if it is supported by billing and management systems with three nines reliability.
Eslambolchi’s keynote also touched on a number of other forward-looking themes. Among these:
- every application and protocol on the network will eventually be converged onto an IP/MPLS backbone. Although it is possible that someday another technology will emerge, nothing is on the horizon to displace MPLS.
- peer to peer applications appear to be driving at least 50% of the traffic over residential broadband connections. He noted that teenagers have figured out peer-to-peer, but business users are just starting to get their feet wet with grid applications
- the current ratio of packet traffic to TDM traffic is approximately 6:1. The gap is widening quickly.
- AT&T’s IP backbone is currently carrying 1,100 Terabytes of traffic per day. The backbone has migrated from gigabit-class routers to terabit-class routers. With the continuing growth in traffic, it is time to start thinking about routers with hundreds of terabits of capacity. The question is when such technology is needed. Given CAPEX constraints, planning for upgrades for just the right time is critical.
- the edge of the edge is where the battle for the customer ultimately takes place. Investment needs to shift to the edge. AT&T is looking at every conceivable technology for bypassing the RBOCs’ last mile stranglehold, which is characterized by the highest costs and lowest bandwidth. For the networking vendors in the audience, Eslambolchi joked “really, even if all you have is a fast pigeon capable of carrying packets, give me a call.”
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