Multi-site small/medium business (SMB) WANs: responding to the challenges and opportunities of last mile access

1
Multi-site small/medium business (SMB)
WANsresponding to the challenges and
opportunities of last mile access
2
Outline

• A bit of background on ePipe
• The rise of broadband
• Defining the needs of distributed business
  leveraging broadband access solutions
• Reality hits last mile challenges
• A timely solution Layer 3 bonding (ML-IP)
• Illustration of ML-IP operation
• ML-IP deployment enhancing broadband
• Service provider, ISP and ASP deployments
• Conclusion

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The Broadband Revolution is Coming!

• Broadband adoption for low cost, high bandwidth
  is booming
• Internet usage continues to grow
• Businesses becoming Internet-dependent
• VPN accepted and deployed as a cost-effective
  alternative to costly frame relay
• Last mile access can either hinder or help
  depending on what is available!
• The revolution has begun

• Hot applications
• File sharing
• Image transfer
• Financial services
• Collaborative development
• Extranets with suppliers
• Advanced retail transactions and training

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The Impact of Broadband

• Broadband
• 56 of businesses view their BB service as
  indispensable
• Business class options w/ SLAs growing daily
• 300 million residential and commercial locations
  by 2007
• Growth rates predicted of 30-70 per year
  depending on location and broadband type

• Broadband enables
• Cost-effective VPNs
• Productive telecommuting
• Business Internet use
• Distance learning
• Advanced retail apps
• Extranets with suppliers and customers
• Much more.

Broadband enables incredible application
connectivity at a very accessible price!
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What does this mean for SMBs?

• gt 6 million SMBs in North America
• gt 65 SMBs are connecting multiple offices
• VPN use by these SMBs will double in 2002
• Easy to implement, affordable VPNs, Internet
  access and other applications affordable
  broadband revolutionary networking!
• SMBs are the backbone of the economy. Broadband
  brings effective, affordable data access to this
  critical market segment!

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Are all needs being met though?

• What multi-site SMBs really want from their
  last-mile solution to be truly effective
• Bandwidth flexibility buy only what they need
  from who they want, at the start and as they grow
  
• Cost-effectiveness price must be reasonable and
  commensurate with business enabled
• High availability cant afford downtime and loss
  of , and refuse to pay for unused redundant
  links
• Ubiquity across locations must be universally
  deployable
• Sound like reasonable requests, but the industry
  isnt quite there yet.

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Todays reality

• How does reality of today match up to the last
  mile needs of SMBs?
• Bandwidth flexibility buy only what they need
  from who they want, at the start and as they grow
  
• Cost-effectiveness price must be reasonable and
  commensurate with business enabled
• High availability cant afford downtime and loss
  of , and refuse to pay for unused redundant
  links
• Ubiquity across locations must be universally
  deployable

Location cant get broadband, so they are stuck
with inflexible slow dial modem
They want the power of frame at HQ, but cant
afford FR cost at branches
They love broadband but its not reliable
Unavailability of some solutions at locations
means non-ubiquitous solution
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Enter ePipes ML-IP

• Multilink IP (ML-IP) boosts the bandwidth and
  uptime of a VPN, WAN or Internet Access solution
  by utilizing transparent link aggregation with
  fail over that is independent of access
  technology or network provider, allowing
  customers to scale their bandwidth at any
  location, on demand.

ML-IP provides true aggregation bonding
notperformance-limited load balancing or sharing!
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How Does ML-IP Address Key Customer Requirements?
ML-IP Solution
BANDWIDTH ML-IP allows bonding of multiple DSL, cable, dial, ISDN, FR, ATM and/or LL to scale incrementally to fit exact bandwidth needs
COST ML-IPs flexibility allows customer to use the most cost-effective services to meet their needs
HIGH AVAILABILITY Through powerful link resiliency management, ML-IPs failover and dial-around capabilities insure the customer network stays up
UBIQUITY ML-IP works at the IP layer and is transport and access link agnostic, so you can use the service / provider of choice at each site even multiple providers
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Site-Site ML-IP Link Aggregation
Dial Backup (up to 4 bonded modems)
PSTN
Any IP Application
Any IP Application
N x xDSL,cable, leased lines (aggregated)
N x xDSL,cable leased lines (aggregated)
M
ML-IP
ML-IP
M
M
M
M
FW/VPN
FW/VPN
IP Network A
New York
Chicago
POP
POP
Receive, de-encapsulate and de-fragment
Fragment, encapsulate and forward
POP
POP
IP Network B

• A fully bonded solution from site to site
• high reliability
• high bandwidth
• no need for provider involvement

Plus balanced Internet access!
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ISP Multilink IP Service
Email server
Access Provider
Service Provider
Internet
M
ML-IP CPE
DSLAM
SMS
M
M
Web server
FW/ VPN
1-3 xDSL,Cableor leased lines (aggregated)
ML-IP Concentrator
Customer 1
Customer 2
ML-IP tunnel
Customer N

• A fully bonded solution from network edge to
  customer site
• Faster customer access to customer Web site
• Faster Internet access and e-commerce
• Faster VPNs with Checkpoint, Cisco etc

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ASP Multilink IP Service
IBM
ML-IP Concentrator
SAP
Access Provider
Internet
M
ML-IP CPE
DSLAM
R
M
M
Application Service Provider
FW/ VPN
FW/ VPN
1-3 xDSL or leased lines (aggregated)
High speed link (eg T-3)
Customer 1
Customer 2
ML-IP tunnels
Customer N

• A fully bonded solution from ASP to customer
  site
• More advanced, high bandwidth applications
• Reliability to insure customer access to
  applications
• Lower latency for better application performance

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Unique Advantages of ML-IP Layer 3 Bonding for
VPNs

• Link type agnostic
• Use the transport provider of your choice even
  use multiple transport providers
• No need to involve service provider to deploy
• Compatible with any IP-based application
• Fragmentation low latency added security
• Support of asymmetrical (many to any) links match
  real-world implementations
• ML-IP bridges the gap!

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Conclusion

• Broadband access is a revolutionizing technology
  that could redefine how business is done
• Today broadband solutions have significant
  last-mile issues in search of a good solution.
• Businesses keep evolving faster than networks can
  manage, so solutions need to be customer-centric,
  not network-centric
• Technologies like ML-IP are the future enabling
  reliable bandwidth without tying customers to
  specific access or transport networks
• For more info on ML-IP visit us on the web at
  www.ml-ip.com