Carrier Ethernet with Class

As companies increasingly use a mixture of cloud services to support their IT function, the reliance on both IP VPN and Carrier Ethernet has also grown. While IP VPN’s approach to service has been well defined it was only last year that the Metro Ethernet Forum packaged together a list of standards for Carrier Ethernet and created what it called CE 2.0. The standardisation was an important one, the MEF’s recommended settings for the priority of traffic ensures that there is much greater consistency in the delivery from Carrier Ethernet.

CE is the method of choice for higher performance apps. Its lower cost per bit combined with increased scalability make it a smarter choice over legacy systems, however the question of definition around traffic types has always been an issue, the Class of Service solves that problem. Traditionally though carriers haven’t seen Class of Service as a top priority for their own service delivery. At Colt, we really think that shouldn’t be the case. Class of Service allows for greater overall control and supervision of the traffic flow and that is something that a simple bandwidth upgrade can’t mitigate.

Increased granularity of the detail available to network managers will allow them to get more accurate measures of the applications and traffic demand independent of the access or network transport they are using. For business that will be increasingly reliant on cloud-delivered apps and big data this will be vital to ensure that there is continuation of business.

Eventually we will progress towards a Carrier Ethernet/IP VPN hybrid model, which will deliver the best of both technologies. For the time being Colt has offered Class of Service as a key point of its Carrier Ethernet portfolio and will continue to follow the CE 2.0 definitions. To find out more about how Class of Service could deliver increased reliability for your network then please speak to a Colt representative.