SDN Performance Takes a Leaf of Faith

By: John Shepler

If the cloud has done anything, it has turned a magnifying glass on once mundane WAN connections. Back in the day, it was OK for file transfers to take a bit too long or the Internet to be a little dicey. After all, the really critical operations were confined to the company LAN and in-house data center. No more. Once your services are hosted in the cloud, WAN performance becomes just as critical as LAN performance.

The New WAN Problem
There’s only one problem. YOU don’t own the WAN like you do your LAN wiring. You are at the mercy of wireless, cable, DSL, fiber and copper wireline service providers. Any issues in their networks have an immediate impact on your business.

How Do You Protect Yourself?
The answer is increasingly SDN or Software Defined Network solutions. SDN covers a lot of technology, but one very popular implementation for business is the integration of multiple, diverse WAN connections. You have several connections to the cloud, but they are coordinated by SDN.

Nature Knows How
Bigleaf Networks calls their process for doing this “Natural Networking.” They create a redundancy of connections with fault tolerance similar to how leaves protect themselves in nature. Here’s how Bigleaf explains their system:


Pretty clever, right? The SDN performance optimization that Bigleaf provides can also save you money. Without traffic management, many businesses wouldn’t even consider “best effort” broadband services like wireless, cable, DSL or low cost fiber options. The cost of outages and variations in performance was too great. The only acceptable WAN solutions were multiple dedicated private line services set up with automatic instant failover. These lines can get pretty expensive and you still have the headache of having to manage this system yourself.

Don't Do It Yourself
Bigleaf makes optimizing multiple Internet connections painless. They provide the managed router that tunnels traffic to their gateway clusters in the cloud. It’s all plug-and-play for you. For the ultimate in reliability, they even have an option to install redundant routers and switches at your site to match the redundancy of their cloud cluster.

Are you frustrated with the performance of your business broadband connection for cloud services? It’s time to take a closer look at what Software Defined Networks can do to improve both quality and reliability of your WAN services. Bigleaf technology is now offered by Telarus, along with services from over 50 data, voice and cloud providers. Discuss your issues and needs with an expert consultant now at no charge.

Why Your Telecom Lines Should Be Switched Ethernet

By: John Shepler

A major trend in telecom services is the massive migration from traditional circuit switched to packet switched networks. Right along with this has come the availability of Ethernet connections door to door and to the Internet. Even so, many organizations still embrace traditional technology and are loath to give up their trusty T1 lines and SONET fiber optic services. Why should they consider making change…. and to what?

Aren’t All Networks Ethernet?
Pretty much all Local Area Networks (LANs), including wireless networks, are based on the Ethernet protocol. There are exceptions, such as Fibre Channel that connects computers to Storage Area Networks (SANs), but the vast majority of networking equipment and software is based on supporting Ethernet.

So, What are T1, DS3 and SONET?
Traditional telecom standards were developed long before anyone thought of using packet technology to communicate. Their intended application was for bundling or trunking telephone lines between phone company offices. Their architecture is based on circuit switching instead of packet switching plus segmenting the line into many individual channels. Each channel carries a single phone conversation. The process for doing this is called TDM or Time Division Multiplexing.

Connecting TDM to Ethernet Networks
You can see there is a technology gap between TDM and Ethernet or IP networks. Fortunately, technology comes to the rescue to make this largely invisible to you, the user. All those little (64 Kbps) telephone channels can be combined on a given line to create one large bandwidth pipe. Plug in modules allow routers to connect to TDM lines going outside and LANs within the company. While this approach has allowed modern computer to computer communications to flourish, there are some good reasons to move on from this protocol conversion approach.

Ethernet vs Ethernet
The Ethernet protocol envisioned by Bob Metcalfe in the 70’s is a different animal than what we use today. The original Ethernet was based on a single wire channel with all packets from all systems vying for access in a giant “collision domain.” This technology is described by the mouthful, “Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection” or CSMA/CD for short. It’s a self-policing system where each connection to the network is responsible for making sure that the line is clear before launching a packet and recovering if the packet gets in a collision with another.

This system works, but network gets crowded fast as devices are added and lines interconnected with simple hubs. Communication is limited to half-duplex because only one connection can talk at a time. The big improvement to the technology, and one we still use today, is called switched Ethernet.

The Switched Advantage
The Ethernet switch directs traffic from source to destination rather than having a single party line for everybody. Transmission and reception paths are physically separate on different wire pairs. This alone doubles the network rate from half-duplex to full duplex because devices and talk and listen at the same time. There is no collision domain anymore. Each device has its own network port and the switch takes care of getting the packets to the right place.

Beyond the LAN
It seems logical that the way to connect networks across town should be the same as connecting multiple small networks into one LAN in-house. It hasn’t been because you lose control of the net when you leave your property. Two business locations across town have to be connected through a no-man’s land in-between by a common carrier. This was originally the role of the local phone company but competition has opened the carrier business to many other players.

Scaling Up Ethernet
For decades, the transportation of voice, data and video between locations has been done using legacy switched circuit telecom technologies. Ethernet, by design, was limited to the LAN because of fairly short distance limitations for each network line. To get around this, Carrier Ethernet was developed. It’s pretty much the same switched Ethernet, but with additional provisions for long distance transmission and the operation and maintenance features needed by the carriers to maintain the lines. Carrier Ethernet scales up switched Ethernet so that packets can be carried across town or even around the world.

Ethernet All the Way
Now it is possible to plug your edge router into a familiar Ethernet connection (copper or fiber) at each of your business locations. In-between, the common carrier reliably transports your packets from location to location. It’s Ethernet all the way with no protocol conversions required.

Switched Ethernet Service Advantages
Think of the world as your network. Well, at least your parts of the world. With switched Ethernet, you can bridge two or more locations to put their LANs on one larger network… just like you would in-house. Ethernet Line Service (E-Line) replaces T1, DS3, and SONET OCx lines one a one to one basis. Carrier Ethernet also adds a couple of new options. Ethernet LAN Service (E-LAN) creates a fully meshed network for you. All you need is an Ethernet line connection at each location. Ethernet Tree Service (E-Tree) is a one to many connection that is popular with content providers. One location generates the traffic to be used by many, many other locations.

The Ethernet Cost Advantage
Carrier Ethernet networks are designed to be both easily scalable and lower in cost than what you are used to with traditional telecom services. It is not uncommon to get Ethernet over Copper connections at 3 Mbps for the same price or less than T1 lines at 1.5 Mbps. At higher speeds, the difference in cost is even more dramatic. The scalability technology lets you upgrade the speed of your service quickly and easily, often without needing new equipment installed.

Switched Ethernet For You
Are you thinking that you may be missing out on service improvements and more bandwidth for your money that can be offered by switched Ethernet service? No need to wait. Copper and fiber optic Carrier Ethernet services are available coast to coast and worldwide right now. Discover your options now.

Choose Your Trunk, Choose Your Handoff

By: John Shepler

The telephone system isn’t what it used to be. Mostly that’s good. Technology has given us wireless mobile smartphones, enterprise VoIP, cloud hosted services and sophisticated call center operations. Many companies, though, can’t afford to shuck their considerable infrastructure investment in order to gain the advantages of the latest advancements. Is there any way to mash up the old and the new and have it work?

Indeed, there is. The magic is in something called a “handoff”. This is the interface between your telecom lines and your equipment. Let’s take a look at what type of handoffs are available to keep your phone system up to date.

In the beginning, “Ma Bell” offered one type of handoff. It’s the venerable analog POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) line that is still popular today. Every phone was an analog phone and every line was an analog line. The handoff was in the form of a single twisted pair of copper wires. All the switching was handled by the public telephone system.

This type of connection still works well for businesses that need only a single telephone line. The phone plugs into a jack on the wall that connects to the telco POTS line. It’s the ultimate in simplicity. This arrangement supports both single wired handsets and the newer cordless phones. You can have multiple cordless handsets connected to a single POTS line.

A slightly more sophisticated business phone system allows multiple desk phones along with multiple outside lines. Each line is still an analog POTS line with its own phone number. It’s called a key telephone system because each phone has a button or “key” for each line. You can see the status of each line, typically 4 or 8, on the light for that line. You select the line you want by pushing the button for that line. You have to provide the switching intelligence for the system by answering the line that is ringing or selecting an unused line for calling out.

You can have as many analog phone lines as your key system will support. Since the lines are independent, there is no economy of scale with this arrangement. Two lines cost twice as much as one line, and so on. To gain a cost advantage, you need to move up to a trunk ing arrangement.

A trunk is a telecom line that supports multiple independent phone conversations. Originally, these were also analog using frequency division multiplexing. In the last 50 years, the old analog trunks have been replaced by digital trunks. T1 phone lines are a popular trunking system. Each T1 line supports up to 24 simultaneous phone calls carried on separate time multiplexed channels. The physical connection is two copper twisted pair. One is for transmit and the other is for receive.

Lets say you have a good size key telephone system with a dozen outside lines. You can provide those lines as individual POTS lines or with a single T1 line that carries all 12 phone lines with room to spare. The T1 line will likely cost less for a dozen lines. If you used all 24 channels, the cost savings would be even more dramatic. The issue you have, though, is how to connect a digital T1 line to your analog telephone system.

The answer is in a piece of interface equipment called a “channel bank.” This device converts between analog and digital signals so that both the phone system and the trunk line have the signal format and electrical characteristics they expect. As far as your phone system is concerned, the connection is exactly the same as if you had separate analog lines all the way to the phone company. This is called an analog handoff.

Another application for analog handoff is older in-house PBX (Private Branch Exchange) phone systems. A PBX is a key system with a brain. The PBX takes care of routing incoming calls and the bank of outside lines. When you dial “9” for an outside line, the PBX gives you the next available one. You don’t know or care which line it has selected. They all work the same.

Many PBX systems will accept one or more T1 lines directly. There is no need to go through the intermediate analog conversion using a channel bank. This is called a digital handoff. It may also be called a T1 CAS (Channel Associated Signaling) digital handoff or an ISDN PRI digital handoff.

ISDN PRI is a special type of T1 line that supports 23 simultaneous calls. What happened to the other channel? It’s used for signaling and switching to make the system faster and capable of slightly higher voice quality. Many PBX systems now have a connector for one or more PRI (Primary Rate Interface) trunks, as this is the most popular service for medium and larger phone systems.

Enterprise VoIP is the current technology being adopted en-masse by medium and larger companies. This replaces the analog or proprietary digital telephone wiring with network connections to the company LAN. The PBX is updated to an IP PBX that supports IP telephones. It also supports a packet switched phone line technology called SIP Trunking.

A SIP Trunk is digital, like T1 or PRI, but not separated into individual channels. Instead, the transmission protocol is Ethernet packets and a VoIP-centric switching format called SIP or Session Initiation Protocol.

An all-VoIP business telephone system would have IP phones and an IP PBX sharing the company LAN. A SIP Trunk connects the PBX to the telephone service provider. This is called a SIP handoff.

Another use of SIP Trunks is for cloud hosted VoIP services that provide the switching as well as connectivity to the public telephone network. With a cloud solution, you no longer have a PBX or IP PBX in-house.

Now, here’s where it gets interesting. You can often select your preferred phone trunk technology and specify the handoff you require. Just like T1 and PRI can be set up to provide analog handoff, SIP trunks can provide SIP, T1 digital, PRI digital, or analog handoffs. This means that your old phone system, with whatever interface it supports, can connect to modern networks and telephone trunking options. It often makes economic sense to continue using your current phone system until you can migrate to the latest technology.

Do you want to connect your current phones or phone system to the telephone service of your choice but aren’t sure how to make that connection? Find out what business telephone trunking options and pricing are available for your business location.

Price Your Telecom Lines Before You Move

If you are in the process of relocating your business or starting up a new venture, you’ll be in the market for new telecommunications services. That could be telephone, data, video streaming or some combination of these. You’re probably aware that the lease price for professional telecom services is not a standard price, but varies with your business location. So it stands to reason that you should pick your business location to minimize telecom expenses.

What? Nobody chooses their business address based on what bandwidth services cost... do they?

Well, if they don’t they should. Of course, other considerations such as the amount of drive by and foot traffic are probably more important to a retail location than how much the Internet connection costs. But even the price of a simple T1 line can more than double if you decide to locate in some picturesque locale that has no infrastructure.

If we’re only talking few hundred dollars a month, line lease costs will probably take a back seat to other factors. But, still, if you have a couple of suitable locations in mind and are looking for some tie-breaker to help you choose, why not price out your telecom services and see if the difference is significant?

Where you really get into the big bucks is when you are going to lease major amounts of bandwidth. Perhaps you are building a new data center or developing content for motion picture companies. You can easily be looking as DS3 (45 Mbps), OC3 (155 Mbps), or even Gigabit Ethernet (1000 Mbps). These are pricey bandwidth services that may cost as much as your monthly rent... or more. It’s definitely worth the trouble of comparing costs for each address you are considering.

Even more importantly, you may find that many out-of-the-way locations are really bandwidth limited. You can likely get T1 service (1.5 Mbps) at any business location. You may even be able to bond T1 lines to double or triple that. But if you are looking for 10, 45, 100 or more Mbps, where you are located may well determine if you can even get service.

The higher bandwidths require fiber optic connections, which are common in major metropolitan areas and less available as you leave the suburbs. Even in the city, you want to be in or near a building that is already lit for fiber. If not, you may have to budget some serious construction costs to have the fiber cable trenched into your location. Downtown, you may be lucky enough to get EoC or Ethernet over Copper if you are near a carrier office. That can get you up to 45 Mbps without fiber construction costs.

Do you have a need for high bandwidth voice, data or video telecom services? Let our Telarus expert consultants run some numbers on the locations you have in mind so you can compare costs and factor that into your decision. It a complementary service for serious business users.

Voice and Data Bandwidth for Hospitals

Hospitals and medical centers need massive amounts of electronic communications infrastructure to operate efficiently, so to speak. With advances in imaging technology and the move to electronic records, this need could grow perhaps exponentially. Is there any way to keep the rising cost of health care in check with this kind of demand for every increasing telecom needs?

You bet there is. First let's take a look at what types of capability are required. Along the way, we'll see what we can do about the costs.

The most basic need of any organization is telephone voice communications. In any facility with more than a few phones that most likely means a PBX phone system. The Private Branch Exchange has come a long way over the years and may now sit on a shelf or in a rack rather than occupying an entire room. Even with legacy equipment, there is major cost savings to be had in consolidating a dozen or two analog phone lines into an ISDN PRI digital trunk running on a T1 line. If more than 23 outside lines are needed, additional T1 lines can be installed, usually by plugging them into an interface card in the PBX.

It should be noted that ISDN PRI trunk line prices have plunged in recent years and that competitive service providers may be able to provide the same level of T1 service that is currently being used at a lower price. Or for the same budget amount, telephone capability can be expanded to meet a growing need.

For greenfield installations or retrofits, IP PBX systems are popular. They perform the same function as the traditional PBX in being an in-house telephone exchange. The big advantage is that the IP PBX supports VoIP handsets. T1 lines carrying ISDN PRI digital telephone service work just as well for an IP PBX. But you also have the option to employ the newer SIP trunking to keep everything in the VoIP realm. That can translate into potentially large additional cost savings.

The other high demand technology within hospitals and medical centers today is data communications. The combined requirements of high definition imaging equipment, such as XRAY, CAT and PET scanners along with medical records access and normal purchasing activity means that getting information into or out of any facility requires a fairly large "pipe." A T1 line may be adequate for smaller satellite offices or a doctor's office. But larger organizations are needing DS3 bandwidth at 45 Mbps or fiber optic connections starting at OC3 or 155 Mbps.

Like digital voice lines, data communication lines have come down in price the last few years. Competitive service providers may be able to offer a considerable cost savings by simply replacing high cost line services with equivalent services from lower cost providers. But the real excitement comes from the new Carrier Ethernet networks. Carrier Ethernet is a technology that is now competing directly with SONET fiber optic service with savings as high as 50% or more in some cases. Carrier Ethernet, also known as Metro Ethernet, offers bandwidths starting at 5 Mbps and easily going up to 100 Mbps, 1 Gbps and even 10 Gbps. The higher the bandwidth, the greater the savings per Mbps over traditional fiber optic services.

If you are responsible for hospital, medical center, or doctor's office telecommunication expenses and would like to see how much you could be saving on your monthly voice and data line bills, find out quickly and easily with our GigaPackets bandwidth evaluation service. You may be astounded at the results.

We're Looking For Successful IT Consultants

You're a seasoned information technology professional. Have you already taken your skills to the next level of success by forming your own consulting company? Perhaps you offer your personal expertise in the design, implementation and troubleshooting of voice and data networks. Maybe you've gone further to become a certified partner with one or more equipment vendors so you can earn extra income from selling the hardware and well as your knowledge. Are you that person? If so, we want you.

What is it we're offering? It's a chance to boost your level of business with additional prospects located in your service footprint and additional service lines. Now, don't worry. There's no cost to get involved and no big learning curve, either. Think of it as an fast and easy incremental boost to the business you are already building.

Interested? Good. Here's what's involved. The opportunity I allude to is the VAR Network. You probably already know that VAR means Value Added Reseller, the industry term for businesses that offer consulting and support services related to the hardware they sell. The basic idea behind the VAR Network is to provide an efficient way to connect businesses that need digital voice and data products and services with independent experts who are already selling to exactly those types of businesses. This doesn't change anything you're doing. It just hooks you up with more customers who may not be aware of your availability.

The VAR Network is so efficient because it's based on Web tools that capture customer requests and route them only to VAR Partners in the right location with the right product line and/or skill set. It handles everything from wiring installation to routers and security appliances, to complete enterprise VoIP solutions including handsets, IP PBX, networking and line services.

Line services? Yes, by becoming a partner of the VAR Network you also become enabled to offer your clients voice and data line services such as T1 lines, DS3 bandwidth, Ethernet WAN connectivity, MPLS networks, VPN solutions, and metro to long haul fiber carriers. This is likely business you've been leaving on the table because you don't have the background or relationships with telecom carriers to make any money from line services. Now you will. All you have to do is gather the customer's requirements and the bandwidth specialists assigned to the VAR Network will put together the best price quotes and handle the contractual paperwork. For literally a few minutes work on your part, you can enhance your income with a cut of the monthly commissions on any line services your customers order.

Whether you're an independent professional or manage a good size consulting firm, it's well worth your while to take a few minutes and check out the VAR Partner Network. That will give you an idea of the range of products and services covered and a view of the online customer interface.