ROUTERS: Five 9 Is Cool Today

Indian enterprises are fast discovering a new business edge in networking. An

ever-increasing number of large enterprises and competitive small- and

medium-sized companies are achieving new levels of productivity by networking

their business-critical systems across both intracity and intercity offices and

set-ups. Not only have they found it beneficial to conduct many internal

corporate functions through the network in an intensely competitive world, they

find it hard not to stay connected with business partners and key customers.

Service provider networks, especially those of Internet service providers (ISPs)

and carriers providing interoffice connectivity for enterprises, have also grown

to meet the networking demands of such customers.

In such a scenario, the business itself gets dependent on the network

infrastructure of maintaining its vital processes to the extent that network

downtime can lead to lost efficiencies and dwindled profits. The service

provider too pays a steep penalty when his network is unavailable. In a

developing country like

India, where the bandwidth available is often paltry, the challenge is even

greater. Costs due to downtime in a network include staff overtime, engaging

consultants, and SLA penalties incurred because of an outage. In addition, a

number of soft costs are related to network downtime. Business stability and

predictability are the key concerns when the service provider signs SLAs with

the customer. Like the telephone network today, the IP network (Internet) should

also be trustworthy and predictable.

Therefore, while choosing a router–the most important networking devices in

a wide area network–a 99.999 availability is not asking for much.

Buying Tips

n Processor

Redundancy: The router must have a redundant CPU with hit-less failover.

Does the router have a standby route processor that can automatically take over

in the case of the original processor failing? Providing an active switchover,

not requiring lengthy reboots, can help the router achieve the 99.999 uptime

that is expected of it. Also, see that the router has an NEBS-complaint chassis

and adequate redundant power backups.

Since router are expected to be up on a 24x7 basis, they must have hot

swappable interface cards, so that operations are not affected by downtimes or

decreased performance of the network.

n Stable

Operating System: Operating system stability is expected in a router. As the

number of routes maintained increases, more strain is put on the processor. A

stable operating system must be in place to process the routes and manage

connectivity, without including delay time to the router.

n Software

Components Are Independent:



A distributed software architecture allows all software functions within the

router to work independently. In case there is a problem with one of the

components, rest of the services will run without any downtime. This is highly

important in a service



provider network.

n Interoperability:

Interoperability across multiple products is achievable by using

standards-based products. Non-interoperability or problem in internetworking

could result in unexpected time delays and even network outages.

n Multiple

Protocols Support: High-level protocol support is needed to fully scale up

to the variety of services that are being demanded of a router. Some crucial

protocols that routers are expected to support are full BGP peering, OSPF, RIP

and static routers, scalable traffic filtering, multicast migration features,

policy-based routing, granular QoS, etc.

n Location of

Deposits: Products support and service availability, with measurable service

levels from original product manufacturers, are important if one is expecting a

highly available network. Find out if the vendor has a local depot that stocks

parts so that a speedy replacement of failed products can be assured. Also, a

24x7 service availability for support and technical assistance should be in

place.

n Minimum

Training: A product is only as good and stable as the people who man it.

Thus, skills for maintenance and operations become very important. Go for

products and use a single set of resources with minimal investments in training,

and see that various products deployed across the network have a uniform look

and feel.

Market Information

Routers are the engines of the Internet. Ever since the advent of that

magical mother of networks, routers have helped companies access a growing

library of information and add their own information to it through hosting. The

phenomenon, a global one, has been applicable to India as well. Although local

hosting has not yet picked up on a large scale, benefits of the Internet are

being accrued by both large enterprises as well as SMEs. Contrary to the

scenario five years ago, when only top executives of companies had access to the

Net, many companies today provide Net access to all their employees. That being

so, the growth of the router market has been tremendous in India.

Routers have been penetrating the Indian market consistently and rapidly.

First came the initial rush to connect branches by the multinationals and

leading companies of India–routers being used to control the WANs. Then came

the Internet explosion in 1998—99. Hundreds of companies signed up to provide

Internet services. Out of them, a hundred or so managed to put up a network. It

was a windfall for router companies, especially for the router king Cisco, which

soon emerged as the largest networking vendor of India, courtesy its router

performance. Even though there has been a slowdown in the ISP market, the router

growth is expected to be quite good in the current fiscal as well. For the last

two years, it is the financial sector that has been generating much of the

demand. In particular, Indian banks have discovered the value of connectivity,

and are aggressively connecting their branches by satellite or leased lines.

Cisco is the market leader as far as routers are concerned. It leads the

market by a huge margin, controlling about 80 percent of the Indian market.

Other notable players, who are trying to eat into Cisco’s share, include

Nortel, Zyxel, and Eicon.