Ethernet WANs poised for rapid growth

NEW YORK, USA: A growing number of businesses are adopting Ethernet services, according to Nemertes' Building a Successful WAN research report.

Ethernet adoption grew from 46 percent in 2004 to 53 percent in 2008, and 85 percent of those companies plan to deploy more Ethernet services in the future. Another 14 percent of companies are planning their first Ethernet deployments.

Cost, flexibility, and bandwidth are driving the demand. "Ethernet services are a fraction of the cost of other alternatives," said Irwin Lazar, principal analyst and program director for unified communications and collaboration with Nemertes Research. "IT executives say they are realizing cost savings, the ability to obtain additional bandwidth, and the support of non-IP protocols such as custom applications for monitoring systems or internal applications, as well the desire to maintain control over enterprise routing protocols."

Adoption of MPLS services continues to increase, with 74 percent of enterprises indicating use of MPLS services and another 10 percent planning or evaluating its use, according to the research benchmark.

Three factors are driving the MPLS services increase of 76 percent from 2006 figures:

- Guaranteed performance for real-time, IP-based applications such as video and voice;

- Moving networks away from hub and spoke designs;

- Cost savings

"Of these three, optimization for real-time applications and more flexible network architecture were tops among IT executives justifying an MPLS migration," says Lazar.