Total Cost of Ownership Study:Network Packet Brokers

This study compares the total cost of ownership of hardware-based first generation network visibility solutions with Brocade’s next generation network visibility architecture. 

For information about ACG's business case analysis services, contact information@acgcc.com.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

Business Case for a Common NFV Platform

The potential of NFV to improve service agility and reduce total cost of ownership requires an approach that allocates hardware, software, and human resources to meet the requirements for all services in an on-demand approach. ACG Research has written a whitepaper, sponsored by VMWare and Affirmed Networks, that explores two emerging models of NFV deployment: 1) custom software stacks that aim to integrate as much of the model as possible into a single solution by a vendor and 2) a modular approach based on the deployment of a common virtualization platform where multiple VNFs and other NFV components are provided independently. The analysis evaluates each approach by comparing its TCO to the TCO of the traditional (appliance-based) approach where all approaches are serving identical functional requirements demand. The analysis determines that only one of these approaches will result in sustainable benefits to the operator.

Download ACG’s Business Case for a Common NFV Platform.

To read more about NFV click here.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

The Time Is Now for NFV

Traditional network architectures based upon purpose-built network appliances and the resulting complex manual and proprietary systems interfaces used to support a rapidly increasing diversity of network appliances have been identified as the root causes of high-cost, poor capacity scaling, and long deployment and innovation cycles. This is affecting the sustainability of network operators’ business models. As a result, network operators have launched their NFV initiatives to overcome the limitations of traditional network architecture. NFV is explicitly designed to reduce cost, and increase network scalability and agility. 

ACG’s whitepaper shows that the common platform approach is uniquely able to support a sustainable business model through implementation of NFV and that appliance-based and NFV custom vertical software stack approaches are likely to fail.

Click to download the TCO “Visualizing the Mobile Core.”

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Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

Business Case for Open Data Center Architecture in Enterprise Private Cloud

Dr. Michael Kennedy analyzed the transition costs from state-of-the-art switching infrastructure to elastic and agile infrastructure that enables private enterprise cloud for a medium-sized enterprise data center. The Juniper Networks’ open data center infrastructure architecture was compared to a proprietary programmable architecture that requires simultaneous investment in a centralized controller and application-aware switch combination. The proprietary architecture requires parallel operation of the existing switching equipment and the new application-aware switches until all applications are moved to the new switches. This is a multiple-year effort for most enterprises. In contrast, the open architecture does not require any change in the existing infrastructure base. The study found that the open architecture provides full asset protection; the proprietary architecture destroys 88 percent of the value of the original switching investment in the first year of the transition period.

Click to download ACG’s Juniper Business Case for Open DC Architecture.

What is your best route to the cloud?

Click for more information about ACG’s business case analysis services or contact sales@acgcc.com.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgcc.com
www.acgcc.com

Forecast of Mobile Broadband Bandwidth Requirements

The consumption of video content is creating a shift from use in the home to mobile devices. This is driving exponential increases in mobile bandwidth demand. ACG Research projects most likely peak period bandwidth requirements to increase at 52 percent compound annual growth rate through 2018.

Dr. Michael Kennedy uses the forecast to model engineered backhaul capacity requirements for a 1,200 square kilometer metro area with a population of 2.5 million. This case study finds that the cell site backhaul bandwidth requirement will range between 0.4 Gbps and 2.5 Gbps in 2018. The odds favor the high end of this range. 10 Gbps Ethernet links in the access network and 10 Gbps rings will be needed to meet the demand requirement, support growth, and maximize load sharing. Agile network architectures will reduce the cost of supporting the expected rapid and volatile increases in mobile bandwidth demand.

Click here to download the business case "Forecast of Mobile Broadband Bandwidth Requirements."

Click for more information about ACG’s business case analysis services or contact sales@acgcc.com.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgcc.com
www.acgcc.com

Making the Business Case: Network Analytics for the New IP

An analytics offloading use case conducted by ACG Research compares the total cost of ownership of Brocade’s architecture with two PMO alternative architectures. The Brocade architecture has 23 percent to 33 percent lower TCO than the PMO alternatives. Brocade’s advantage is due to its use of virtual network functions hosted on virtual machines and the agility and elasticity achieved though Brocade’s orchestration system. A network monitoring and customer experience management use case compares the TCO of Brocade’s virtual architecture to an appliance-based architecture (PMO) and finds a 43 percent TCO savings for the Brocade architecture.

Click to download the Brocade NVA TCO Whitepaper_ACG.

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ACG HotSeat: Brocade on Mobile Analytics for Next-Gen Networks

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgcc.com
www.acgcc.com

Business Process Redesign Is Essential to NFV/SDN Success

Leading telecom operators began the network function virtualization initiative several years ago in recognition of the need to reduce cost increases and increase revenue growth rates to sustain profitability. While much technical process on NFV and related SDN technology has been made, I believe business process redesign is needed to change the organization and people's jobs if the financial benefits are to be realized. 

Read more in Business Process Redesign Is Essential to NFV/SDN Success by Michael Kennedy.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

Kick-Start Your Move to a Network-Centric Business with Managed Network Services

The benefits of a network-centric business go beyond just economics. With managed network services you can outsource day-to-day operations, freeing time, money and staff to concentrate on changing, growing and managing your business.

Businesses are always looking for opportunities to create a broad ecosystem of customers, partners and suppliers that accelerate their processes and innovation and give them the competitive edge. Managed network services (MNS) can provide you with that boost to move to a network-centric business. With managed network services you can immediately minimize the day-to-day network management issues that are robbing you of the time you need to initiate fundamental changes in your business. For example, managed router service (MRS) that is bundled with Ethernet service offers an end-to-end solution to support multi-location businesses. Other versions of the service are available to provide managed Internet and security service providing a reliable and secure solution for a centralized or single site Internet connection. But to make a successful transition you and your teams have to first rethink your business processes and develop strategies to minimize the risks that are intrinsically linked to the things that make a network-centric business so attractive.

Although a network centric business brings everyone together into a broad ecosystem, a word of caution is necessary: it also increases exposure to security risks, capacity management challenges and performance management issues; and always-on services place additional burdens on your staff. Midsize businesses also are being attacked and suffering outages. The consequence of these breaches is severe; within hours they can threaten or destroy the trust and goodwill that took you and your staff years to build. And let’s not forget the legal issues: in some industries government regulations also include the threat of criminal liability. Loss of the network and downtime will cripple a network-centric business and not addressing these issues is betting your business—with the odds against you. To find out why, click to down load the article.

For more information about ACG's business case analysis services, contact sales@acgcc.com.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

ACG Announces Managed Router Services TCO Calculator

Businesses are turning to managed router services to simplify network management, enhance performance, free-up resources and reduce costs.

What are the benefits of MRS for your business? Find out by running the numbers with the total cost of ownership calculator, developed by ACG in conjunction with Time Warner Cable Business Class. In just a few minutes you can determine:

• Approximate TCO savings for an MRS Ethernet or Internet and security solution.
• Key costs and staffing impact for deploying, managing and monitoring hardware, software, upgrades and providing training and support.
• Important business and operational benefits associated with off-loading many day-to-day network management duties.

Try the MRS TCO Calculator today to stay ahead of the IT cost curve.

For more information about Michael Kennedy, click here. Click here for information about ACG’s business case analysis services.

For more information about the calculator project contact sales@acgcc.com.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

Forecast of Residential Fixed Broadband and Subscription Video Requirements

Residential fixed broadband usage has evolved from static search and information retrieval to multimedia content delivery on a wide variety of devices. The move from broadcast service, which is multicast across the metro network, to broadband video service, which is unicast, and the use of many more devices in each household will have a massive impact on the required bandwidth capacity of the metro network.

ACG Research presents a five-year projection of average household bandwidth requirements. Average household bandwidth requirements are estimated to be 2.5 Mbps in 2014 and will grow at a five-year CAGR in a range from 19 percent to 44 percent with a most likely value of 31 percent. 

Read more in Forecast of Residential Fixed Broadband Requirements.

For more information on Michael Kennedy, click here.

Contact sales@acgcc.com for more information about ACG's business case analysis services.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

Business Case for Virtual Managed Services

Cisco Evolved Services Platform provides automated, optimized, and personalized services via orchestrating virtualized network functions running on cloud data center technology. It allows fast introduction of new services and reduces the TCO of managed services sales and service delivery processes. Virtual managed services provided via ESP reduce costs and increase operational efficiency to the point where service providers can now profitably sell to smaller businesses.

ACG Research compared the total cost of ownership of the present mode of operations with the virtual managed service solution for two managed services offerings: 1) Cloud VPN service, and 2) Security service. It found that operation expenses (opex) were about 78 percent less for virtual managed service for both offers and that return on investment (ROI) for both virtual managed services offerings was more than 200 percent over a five-year planning period. The three largest sources of reduced opex are elimination of most truck rolls, many onsite maintenance and installation activities, and minimization of the costs to support onsite software.

Download the whitepaper.

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Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

Enlarging the Managed Network Services Opportunity through Virtual CPE

Virtual business CPE has the potential to create a win-win situation for small and midsize businesses and network operators. Small and midsize businesses are trying to develop network-centric business models, but networks present challenges that are beyond these businesses’ managerial and technical capabilities. Read more.

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Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

Business Case for NFV/SDN Programmable Networks

ACG Research analyzes three programmable High-IQ network use cases that were created by Juniper Networks. The analyses show the benefits derived from the deployment of programmable networks for service providers. A cloud customer premise equipment and virtual firewall (vCPE) use case replaces physical CPE with a simple on-premise Ethernet device and moves IP virtual private network  and firewall functions to the cloud. This produces a 36 percent five-year net present value increase as compared to the physical CPE solution. A real-time network self-optimization use case replaces manual traffic engineering processes. This produces a 27 percent five-year total cost of ownership  savings compared to the manual processes. An elastic traffic engineering use case for a national all IP core network demonstrates the advantages of an SDN solution as compared to the present mode of operations. The SDN solution reduces bandwidth and associated link capital expenses by 35 percent while maintaining all network service level agreements.

Click to download the whitepaper.

For more information about ACG's business case analysis services, contact sales@acgresearch.net.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

Programmable Carrier Networks: A New Architectural Approach

Programmable carrier networks, a new, eclectic, emerging architectural approach, incorporate concepts such as SDN, NFV, shared mesh protection, path computation element protocol and cloud computing concepts and blends them with established transport, switching, routing and network management techniques. The objective of this merger is to overcome the barriers created by traditional network architectures that carriers are encountering as they try to accommodate high and volatile traffic volumes and unpredictable traffic patterns as well as respond to the innovative business models of cloud-based and OTT service providers.

Click here to read more. For more information about Michael Kennedy, click here. 

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

Residential Broadband, Video Usage Drives Operators to Redesign Their Metro Networks

Residences' move from viewing broadcast TV to Internet TV and businesses' pervasive use of rich multimedia content and cloud services are forcing service providers to re-architect their metro networks. The resulting network designs are bringing network content and intelligence closer to end-users. Click here to find out why.

For more information about Michael Kennedy, click here. To read more articles, click here.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

Optimizing the Network Edge with Juniper Networks MX Series 3D Universal Edge Router

Service providers are increasingly looking to optimize their network design and reduce operational complexity in order to minimize totalcost of ownership, contain operational risk, and reduce environmental impact. Traditionally, service providers use a variety of appliances to deliver and monitor services and ensure security; however, this approach becomes more inefficient, complex, expensive, and risky as network scale and service offerings increase. 

ACG Research compares network upgrades for two hypothetical operators. Operator 1 implements a traditional appliance-based edge network, and Operator 2 implements a converged edge network utilizing the Juniper Networks MX960 hosting both routing and services. Among other findings, the research establishes that the converged MX960 solution demonstrates up to 49 percent lower TCO and 64 percent lower environmental emissions than the traditional appliance-based service delivery method. 

Click here to download the TCO.

For more information about Michael Kennedy, click here. To read other business cases, click here.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

Business Case for Cisco SDN for the WAN

Traffic requirements are growing rapidly because of the widespread acceptance of online video services, cloud computing, and mobile broadband. WAN costs also are rising with traffic growth in part because of suboptimal network utilization efficiency. At the same time service creation processes are lengthy and service providers’ responses to competitive threats such as over-the-top video and cloud-based services have been sluggish, resulting in slow revenue growth. A root cause of rising WAN costs and slow revenue growth is poor WAN management information flows and many manual work steps.

Software defined networking in the WAN offers the opportunity to drive down costs through increased operational efficiency, increased service creation velocity, and differentiated and personalized network services. Cisco WAN Automation Engine implements SDN in the WAN for service providers’ networks. It is a platform that provides real-time visibility, analysis and control across multivendor network infrastructure and services. Real-time software abstraction of the network allows applications to gain visibility and control of the network through web programming techniques rather than through device-specific embedded programming techniques. This strengthens service providers’ network control and lessens their dependence on systems vendors.

ACG Research analyzes four use case examples to demonstrate the financial benefits of SDN in the WAN as implemented by WAE to service providers. Two dynamic bandwidth management examples identify opportunities for service providers to sell occasional, high-bandwidth services to enterprises and quantify financial metrics, including net present value, gross profits, and return on investment. Two traffic engineering examples describe opportunities to apply automated traffic load management to increase service velocity, reduce operating expenses, and improve network utilization. 

Click here to download the TCO.

For more information about Michael Kennedy, click here. To read other business cases, click here.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

Home Broadband, Video Usage Patterns Will Force Changes in Access, Aggregation Networks

Residential networking services and the devices we use to access them are constantly changing, usually in unanticipated ways. Video streaming, social networking, smart phones and tablets are creating new demand, displacing traditional media and threatening the foundations of the multichannel video subscription (cable, DBS and telco) industry. The new services and devices also are causing a shift in video usage from multichannel service to broadband Internet service. The shift already has made video the dominant Internet traffic source and is driving network operators to rethink their network architectures. Read more at FierceTelecom.

For more information about Michael Kennedy, click here.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

Business Case for BTI Intelligent Cloud Connect for Content, Co-lo and Network Providers

BTI Intelligent Cloud Connect provides converged optical and LSR based architecture that responds to the challenges of today’s metro data center networks.

Cloud computing, video streaming, and social media are contributing to a dramatic rise in metro and regional inter data center traffic that includes data center to data center, data center to access networks and local traffic, and data center to peering and partner traffic.

Inter data center network architectures are being reconfigured to respond to the increased traffic volumes and changing traffic patterns. The architectural challenges include cost effectively accommodating rapidly expanding traffic volumes, providing network flexibility, and supporting service innovation.

BTI Intelligent Cloud Connect (ICC) is a converged optical, LSR and application-aware architecture that responds to these challenges. The converged platform provides 10 Gbps and 100 Gbps DWDM wavelengths, MPLS Label Switch Router (LSR), and a Network Function Virtualization-based (NFV) applications module. The LSR approach is optimized for cloud connectivity applications.

ACG Research conducted a case study of a typical metro data center network to compare the five-year total cost of ownership of the BTI Intelligent Cloud Connect architecture with two alternative solutions: 1) LSR Composite: separate LSR, transparent optical transport, and network analytics platforms; 2) L3 Composite: separate L3 router, transparent optical transport, and network analytics platforms.

The case study shows that BTI’s TCO for five years is 58 percent lower than the LSR Composite alternative and 71 percent lower than the L3 Composite alternative. BTI’s CapEx is 59 percent lower than the LSR Composite alternative and 72 percent lower than the Layer 3 router alternative. BTI’s OpEx is 56 percent lower and 69 percent lower for the LSR Composite and L3 Composite alternatives, respectively. Click here to download the TCO.

For more information about ACG’sbusiness case analysis consulting service, contact sales@acgresearch.net.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch

F5: Business Cases

F5 Networks' solution delivers data center consolidation, DDos and S-Gi mobile network simplification.

Business Case for S/Gi Network Simplification: F5 provides a unified solution for delivery of S/Gi services. An S/Gi network simplification use case compared an alternative point products solution to the F5 unified solution. It shows that the F5 solution has 36% lower TCO.

Business Case for F5 DDoS Consolidated Solution: F5 provides a comprehensive DDoS mitigation solution using a two-tier (L3-4 and L7) architecture. As compared to a solution using multiple point products over five years it has 81% lower TCO, 80% lower CapEx and 82% lower OpEx.

Business Case for Data Center Network Consolidation: F5 provides a unified data center networking solution that delivers multiple services over a common hardware and software framework.  It uses a common hardware and software framework to deliver multiple services. This simplifies the configuration and management of network resources without any hardware restrictions. 

For more information about ACG's business case analysis services, contact sales@acgresearch.net.

Michael Kennedy

mkennedy@acgresearch.net
www.acgresearch