Written by Arunas Chesonis

Today, PAETEC and Cavalier Telephone have become one. This is a momentous day for our two companies, but more importantly, I believe we each are stronger and better positioned to serve your business than ever before in our combined history.

Eight years ago, I wrote a blog like this one that compared us telecom carriers vying for your business to the opening tip-off before a basketball game. It's at that moment when each team has an identical opportunity and the ball goes to the team which better anticipates and jumps higher. Likewise, in telecom we all had the similar routers, switches and servers, and the jump ball was open to anyone who worked harder to serve you.

Today, I believe the industry has further evolved, and we have developed such advantages in serving your organization that would make that analogy of a game-opening tip-off unfair. In fact, when we offer our unique brand of software, hardware, energy and financing solutions, it's like we're approaching the jump-ball while standing on a ladder.

Now that PAETEC and Cavalier have combined, our advantages to serve you have become even more distinct. Together, we now have one of the largest fiber networks of any competitive carrier, which will offer new options for network access. Our equipment subsidiary, Quagga, has developed complete IP-based solutions to make your business communications easier and more powerful than ever before. Our PBX manufacturing subsidiary, Allworx, is building what we believe to be the most complete IP-based telecom solutions for a small business. And our telecom expense management software suites, PAETEC's PINNACLE and Cavalier's Compco, are combining to reduce costs and increase efficiency for your telecom and IT organization.

And of course, layered over all of those products is an employee base nearly 5,000 strong focused on delivering unmatched service.

Today, we're larger and stronger than ever before, but will strive to earn your business with all the same passion that we did when our companies started. Welcome to the new PAETEC.

Written by Alex Foster

Looking at any IT trade publication or general publication it is clear that cloud computing is a hot and growing topic. Many telecom service providers have jumped on the bandwagon and launched new Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offerings based on virtualization marketed under the umbrella term cloud computing. Some bloggers have been quick to call these offerings 'cloud washing,' implying that they are not genuine cloud solutions and, more importantly, that this somehow reduces their value to the buyer. While Infrastructure-as-a-Service offerings based around virtualization may only have some of the attributes of true 'cloudness,' these offerings can bring a host of benefits to customers and offer a bridge to cloud computing for firms that aren't ready or able to jump into philosophically pure cloud computing.

So what are the offerings we are talking about? Our own Virtual Datacenter products are an excellent example. We offer virtual server instances on a clustered VMware environment that resides in our data center and securely supports many different customers. Customers buy virtual processors and RAM that represent a claim to shared resources and buy storage for their OS and applications by the GB or TB on one of our SANs.

This offers a host of benefits to customers. Financially, customers get a high-availability environment with dual-everything configuration (dual SAN controllers to diverse fiber connecting the data center) that would often be uneconomical for a single firm to develop. The cost also scales predictably with resource demands compared in contrast to buying gear outright where a terabyte increase in storage demand may require purchasing an entirely new array once a capacity threshold is crossed. Finally, for many mid-market firms that do have the economies of scale to build out one data center environment, we offer a cost-effective disaster recovery and replication solution. From an operational perspective, we provide customers a turn-key high-availability VMware environment that we have spent a significant amount of time and effort architecting so they don't have to. We also handle all the day to day storage and server administration so they can focus entirely on the application layer.

So is this a cloud solution? It is missing some pieces that are considered important elements of 'cloudness' by many definitions. It isn't self-service - you have to talk to a sales person, you can't just put in a credit card number on a website and immediately get a provisioned server. It isn't truly metered - you buy capacity in the form of resource reservations rather than actual compute resources used per month. Perhaps most importantly, it isn't necessarily accessed through the internet at all - it may be connected solely to a customer's private WAN and never touch the internet. Any of these three factors might lead many cloud pundits to argue that it is really "hosted virtualization" rather than cloud computing but I would argue this is purely a semantic distinction.

For typical internal corporate applications, the vast majority of the existing infrastructure cannot be moved to public cloud computing environments without major reconstruction of both the applications and the firm's IT policies. Most enterprise applications are delivered over private WAN connectivity for both security and performance reasons that are impossible to fully replicate with internet connectivity. These applications have dependencies on other applications that may require direct layer 2 connectivity into an existing data center or may require the colocation of other gear in the carrier's environment for low-latency communication. Try asking Amazon if you can colocate your mainframe in their data center so you can use their elastic cloud for the web tier while relying on your existing application and database servers. High volume players like Amazon and Microsoft have abstracted away many of the infrastructure capabilities provided by carrier clouds into one-size fits all solutions for networking, security, load balancing and integration with existing infrastructure.

While elastic cloud solutions have proven excellent for specific niche applications like web content and bursty, computationally intensive projects, carrier-delivered IaaS offerings provide a realistic migration path to cloud computing for the other 95% of enterprise applications. Carrier cloud solutions provide an ability to integrate the new IaaS resources into existing network and server footprints that is unmatched by high volume, elastic cloud providers. Unfortunately, the flip side of this capability is a reduction in the ability of carriers to offer true self-service solutions and automated provisioning (for now) but for most IT projects this is a small factor and easily outweighed by the greater infrastructure integration and control offered by many carrier IaaS/ cloud environments.

Written by Tara Kovaleski

To some organizations, their communications are a commodity, something to be considered with the electric or water for their office. In the past this might have been true. Telecommunications providers were indistinguishable, a dime a dozen, and mostly competed for a half penny difference in long distance or a slight advantage in internet speed.

Today, however, this could not be further from the truth. While cost is always a consideration, the total solution and its value to the business is more important than ever. Business owners and managers are looking for ways to make their work force more productive and efficient.

Businesses are moving more applications and processes online, and relying on the web to acquire and keep customers. Employees rely on collaboration tools such as e-mail, instant messaging, unified communications and web and video conferencing to conduct daily business from any location. Applications that focus on enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM) and supply chain management (SCM) are critical to most large businesses, and must perform equally well from all locations. Information technology professionals also need to consider the "what if" more than ever; and prepare disaster recovery plans and plans to protect their confidential information.

As a sales professional in this environment, it is vital that we are product experts and comprehend how they meet the needs of commercial clients. We need to understand the features and relate these to the goals of the business owner or IT director. Our discovery has moved from a "savings" mindset to a focus on learning how the business operates. Solid understanding of the needs, challenges and goals of the business enable us to match our products' functionality to meet these needs. We are now able to be a consultant to our client rather than a salesperson. We are not pushing products to the end user, but rather working in a partnership to address needs of the business and plan for future requirements.

At Cavalier, we offer a wide variety of services, designed to meet the needs of a small business and a Fortune 500 company. This variety allows the sales consultants to customize the services to ensure that we are providing a total solution to the client, not just a product. This strategy accomplishes many goals. For our customer, they can be assured that the sales consultant has taken the time to fully understand their business and recommend a plan that aligns with their needs. The customer gains further value knowing they're in a partnership with their consultant who will work with them now and in the future to ensure that as their business changes, Cavalier will change with them.

Selling and implementing solutions provides a win-win situation for all parties, and we will continue to strive to accomplish this goal with each and every client.

Written By Alex Foster

For the past five years MPLS-based IP VPNs have been the dominant (and frequently only) WAN transport solution for organizations of all sizes. Originally deployed and adopted by the very largest organizations to support interconnection between thousands of sites, IP VPNs quickly trickled down-market to the point of ubiquity. IP VPN adoption spread rapidly because it offered a complete solution to a common corporate need - secure, fully-meshed IP connectivity with quality of service between locations. While service providers and equipment vendors were quick to point out a variety of MPLS-specific features that went beyond fully-meshed IP connectivity (maintaining overlapping IP networks during acquisition integration or for partner extranets etc) for a long time the only real WAN requirement was IP connectivity with adequate performance characteristics.

While WAN architectures have converged on a layer 3 approach, a quiet revolution has been underway in data center networks and is increasingly creating requirements that cannot practically be met with IP VPNs. Modern data center networks are designed around the requirements of virtualization and SAN replication. Already data center switches have been reinvented to support the needs of large layer 2 domains where virtualized operating systems migrate between physical hosts and storage is delivered over a common network infrastructure. These trends that reinvented the data center LAN over the past several years are now rapidly being brought to the WAN by the disaster recovery plans based on virtualization and SAN replication between data centers.

Technology Advances:

One of the biggest requirements for fully leveraging virtualization is that virtual machines be able to move between physical hosts while maintaining their IP addressing. Although the need for layer 2 connectivity between data centers has been growing for some time, the obvious game changer for WAN architecture between data centers came in September with VMWare's support of distance VMotion between data centers. This functionality allows a live VMWare guest environment to be transferred from a physical server in one data center to different physical server in a data center up to 200km away while still running. The appeal of distance VMotion is undeniable and has set off a storm of discussions and proof of concepts in the VMware blog universe. Unfortunately distance VMotion brings with it a host of new network requirements (sub 5ms latency, OC-12 minimum bandwidth) while further emphasizing the importance of Ethernet connectivity between datacenters.

Even without the new requirements of distance VMotion, regular (non-live) virtual machine mobility between data centers emphasizes a WAN architecture pointing away from traditional layer 3 IP VPN networks. Thus far vendors and network architects have responded with several strategies for accommodating these needs within the existing WAN architecture. The well-tested solution is to simply operate outside of the IP VPN and purchase SONET or WDM connectivity between the datacenters to act as a LAN extension. If cost is no object, there are only a few data centers to connect and you can get this type of connectivity between them, this tends to be a good solution. Unfortunately these conditions are rarely all true. Operating a SONET or WDM network alongside a WAN requires multiple sets of very high cost equipment and circuits. It also scales poorly in terms of adding additional facilities as these solutions logically behave as point-to-points (in most cases) with each new data center requiring multiple links if it is going to connect to more than one peer. Even getting connectivity between data centers can be difficult if they are served by different carriers and there is generally little to no choice in carriers leading to even higher costs.

A more recent solution to extending Ethernet between data centers is to overlay Ethernet traffic on top of IP VPN networks using tunneling to encapsulate Ethernet frames into IP packets and then strip them back out at the far and. These solutions (such as Cisco's Nexus 7000 platform) eliminate the operational expense of running parallel networks but require a substantial hardware investment and a significant amount of expertise to configure and maintain.

Recommended Solution:

While both of these solutions can be made to work, they are far from ideal. The preferred solution for most mid-market businesses will increasingly be carrier-delivered layer 2 VPNs. This category includes services such as Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS), E-LAN and from a legacy perspective Transparent LAN Services. These services are typically delivered over the service provider's MPLS backbone but leverage functionality in the provider edge to deliver a layer 2 service based on virtual bridging rather than a layer 3 service based on virtual route forwarding. This gives the customer a network that behaves like a wide-area Ethernet switch. For many companies this single Ethernet WAN can serve as a solution to interconnect both data centers and offices.

Using VPLS customers can solve many of the common data center interconnection problems in a way that is simpler and more intuitive than in an IP VPN environment and far more affordable than SONET/ WDM solutions. Without having to peer with service provider routers at layer 3, subnets and layer 2 domains can be easily extended between data centers. With complete control of the IP layer routing can be based on the preferred protocol rather than a limited set of protocols supported by the service provider. Perhaps most importantly, firms can tune their routing protocols to deliver convergence times far quicker than possible in an IP VPN environment. Finally, many technologies that have a long history of deployment in data center environments such as HSRP and VRRP can be leveraged in the WAN for failover between datacenters with complete IP mobility.

Conclusion:

Although there is lingering concern in some corners about latency over the MPLS core these concerns are generally unwarranted. The latency imposed by MPLS hops in the carrier core is on the order of 12-50 microseconds, nearing irrelevant even in a world of single-digit millisecond requirements. While VPLS and E-LAN solutions are not yet common they are growing rapidly. Virtually every major carrier has announced some form of VPLS offering and customers are quickly realizing that removing the service provider from the IP layer of their network can greatly simplify their lives and speed the deployment of next-generation datacenter solutions. The instances where separate corporate and datacenter networks can be justified will continue to decline and the likely winner in these cases will be layer 2 VPN solutions such as VPLS.

Written by Wendy Mushow

The first half of 2010 has been an exciting time for Cavalier's Indirect Channel Program. We've made some enhancements; increasing agent support resources, product launches, and gained expert insight from Cavalier's Vice President of Agent Sales, Michael Gough. Gough has brought a re-charged emphasis on what he calls the "human element" to building partner relationships. This means face-to-face meetings between agents and channel managers to collectively share goals and objectives, as well as support from the sales engineering team, product management, agent resource center and senior management.

This season's Channel Partner's show in Washington will be especially exciting, since the show is a short drive from our Richmond headquarters, in the heart of our strongest markets. The show will take place from September 20th- September 22nd and is the communications industry's only event exclusively for indirect sales organizations - agents, VARs, systems integrators, interconnects and consultants. Cavalier will be exhibiting at booth number 1022.

Although the enhancements to Cavalier's Channel Program have been driven from the top down, it was not without input from channel managers and agents. I recently asked seasoned Channel Managers, Terri Radulski and Charles Ridgley some candid questions about Cavalier's Channel Program and the upcoming Channel Partners show. My questions and the collective answers of Chuck Ridgely and Terri Radulski of the Indirect, Channel Program follows:

What is your favorite aspect of Cavalier's Indirect Channel Program?

The dedication and passion we have to our agent's success. Our culture and values create strong lasting relationships with our agents. We support them with an in-depth partner on-boarding program, sales portal and agent resource center. Our resources drive desired results easily for example; the agent resource center is a team of professionals dedicated to supporting Cavalier's partners and their customers. The team is cross-trained in multiple disciplines to support all aspects of the sales process, from determining service eligibility by product and location, processing adds and changes, billing and accounting questions to repair and service. We're able to provide superior solutions with a quick turnaround time. Time is money, and we recognize that our partners need solid pricing, smooth provisioning and a responsive repair/business care team. We do it all - with our partners' interests in mind.

What are you most looking forward to at the fall Channel Partners show?

Continuing to build our existing partner relationships and having face-to-face conversations. I'm excited to talk to them about our differentiated products such as IPeer -our hosted PBX solutions, Private networking-MPLS, VPLS & VPN, and IP voice services. Also, the ability to talk to our agents in person about the competitive advantage our fiber network gives them when selling into enterprise opportunities.

How much influence do you think the show has on the channel and how many shows have you been to?

Charles- I've been to six shows and they have a very positive influence on the channel. It's a great opportunity to meet new partners, discuss ways to further our mutual success and have that face-to-face conversation that is so critical in developing a successful business relationship.

Terri - I've been to five shows and had great experiences at each. It is a one of a kind show in our industry and provides opportunity to sharpen our skill set through education on up and coming technology trends, as well as industry trends that will have an impact on the channel.

What message will you convey to partners about Cavalier?

NOW is the time to get on board with Cavalier, so you can take advantage of a strengthening economy and grow your company's profitability through an industry leading agent program designed with your business in mind. The future of the Cavalier Channel Partner Program looks brighter than ever.

Are there any agents or master agents that you would like to give special recognition to for outstanding performance during the first half of the year?

We're grateful to all of our current active partners who have embraced our innovative products and helped us bring better solutions to customers. We're helping our partners address some of the most pressing priorities for our customers, for security, improved productivity, mobility and of course competitive pricing. We're excited about the second half of 2010!

Written by Lou Sommi

Remember the stimulus money? The mega-large sums the U.S. government used to jump-start the economic engine? Automating healthcare was one of the top funding targets. A year and a half later the structure has come together and a flurry of activity is underway to take advantage of financial incentives made available through the federal government to automate healthcare.

It started officially in February 2009 when the Health Information Technology for Economic & Clinical Health Act (HITECH) was enacted as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

The HITECH Act has the very broad goals of promoting the adoption and "meaningful use" of health information technology and strengthening the enforcement of HIPAA rules that ensure the privacy and security of the electronic transmission of health information.

In July 2010 the final rules were released regarding incentives for physicians who achieve performance standards with EHR technology. Physicians are eligible to receive up to $44K-$63k each for the implementation and usage of EHR. These incentive payments begin in 2011 and will be paid out over 5 years. In fact, 75% of incentives are front-loaded, or payable in the first 2 years, with only $14k paid in years 3-5.

Before the final rules were released, determining how to demonstrate "meaningful use" of EHR technology was a challenge. The only thing we knew for sure was that the federal government was not going to send a check in the hope doctors would get away from dictation and paper files.

The rules are still not black and white but do offer a better guide for compliance. In general, the adoption of Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems and processes must demonstrate improvements in the areas of service quality, safety, and efficiency of healthcare services. They must engage patients and families to improve care coordination and generally improve public health.

Most medical practices and small hospitals will hire a certified consultant to guide them through the process at a cost of about $25-$35K. To give consultants and healthcare providers more structure, a program has been established by the department of Health and Human Services that approves which EHR systems can be sold to doctors, hospitals, and other healthcare providers. The program provides testing procedures - 45 in total - for evaluation of EHR system components, including system encryption, reporting, and authorized access management.

Hospitals are a focal point of healthcare delivery. The HITECH Act will force them to upgrade their IT systems, installing EHR systems and computerized physician-order entry (CPOE) systems. The upgrades will affect up to 80% of current hospital IT applications.

The impact of implementing EHR in a hospital setting is a bit more complex than in a medical practice. A hospital has to take into consideration the hard costs of setting up and managing the systems, the government incentives, and a range of savings associated with improved operations.

The entire operation becomes more efficient when doctors and staff can quickly share medical records and when hospital resources like radiology equipment or medical specialists are managed more transparently. Following are some estimates of the "soft" cost savings associated with EHR in a hospital:

• Reducing the number of adverse drug events = $8K to $15K per bed per year.


• Optimizing the use of labor = $20K per bed/year improvement.


• Managing the revenue cycle - Roughly 0.4% of hospital services go unbilled = over $4K per bed per year.

Then there's perhaps the most important long term benefit of an EHR - improvement of the healthcare outcome. The patient experience improves when precise guidelines for medically authorized tests and procedures are followed. Unnecessary treatments are reduced and the risk of adverse drug reactions and medical error are lower. CPOE systems require physicians, nurse practitioners, and other specialists to follow a menu of defined procedures when requesting services, tests, or drugs for patients. These clinical-decision-support (CDS) tools give physicians best-practice guidelines for medical procedures.

For the management team and board of directors, it comes down to a return on investment. To launch an EHR the average start-up cost per bed is $80K-$100K. When you combine the federal government incentives of about $17K per bed with the cost savings described above, the ROI is typically 2 to 4 years, according to a McKinsey report.

For EHR consultants an added layer of expertise is required to consider automation outside the medical facility (hospital or medical practice). Electronic health information about patients must be shared across different health care settings, by being embedded in network-connected enterprise-wide information systems. Think about how much information are involved - demographic information, medical history, medication and allergies, immunization status, laboratory test results, radiology images, and billing information.

It's important for service providers and the consultants who guide them to also consider the efficiency and security of the wide area networks and virtual private networks that connect hospitals to medical practices, specialists to hospitals, medical practices to insurance companies, suppliers to hospitals, patients to physicians and so on. This is where a consultant will tap the experience and know-how of a network service provider like Cavalier.

Cavalier has developed a high level of expertise in delivering secure, converged private network solutions, data back-up and remote access solutions for the healthcare industry. We partner with healthcare clients in a range of size and specialties. Working side-by-side with financial officers, senior technology officers and chief executives we have helped clients implement medical image libraries with real-time access by remote physicians, design systems to transport patient records to multiple data centers, communicate with suppliers to replenish pharmaceutical inventories and enable medical practioners to administer care by video conference to patients at home.

To hear more about the types of solutions we've designed for the healthcare industry and how we can help you enhance patient care and improve practice efficiencies, contact us at 877-240-1527.

Written by Jennifer Granger

In recent years, technology trends have exponentially grown more favorable to hosted application models. This is a paradigm shift from previous years. As recently as the beginning of the decade there were no more than a dozen organizations that referred to themselves as Application Service Providers (ASP). They formed a small, niche group of service providers. A bold combination of aggressive build outs of sophisticated data centers stacked with hardware, expensive enterprise software agreements, ISO and ITIL certified practices and talented developers many from leading consulting firms was a powerful formula. However, there were few early adopters, customers, ready to embrace the model and see the operational freedoms and capital benefits at reach.

The software applications hosted by the ASPs were enterprise solutions including ERP, SCM, CRM and eCommerce. These applications were powerhouses and bolt-on options such as HR and Finance modules allowed for departmental permutations but any significant customization required extensive developer time and lengthy engagements. The cost and time to go live was prohibitive.

Many businesses also found the service model too "uncomfortable." The hosted applications were rigid, the applications and infrastructure resided outside of their tangible enterprise and it was still a time when IT outsourcing was viewed by many as taboo. Within a couple of years most ASPs ran out of funding and were unable to sustain operations. The reason for their failure was lack of customization and unsupportive business models to allow providers to take advantage of economies of scale. Subsequently many of the application pioneers were acquired. Oracle now owns some of the largest including PeopleSoft, Seibel and JD Edwards.

Fast forward and there is a fundamental change in how business gets done. Software as a Service (SaaS) became the successor to ASPs, simple and economical, the model works. SaaS works because as technology improved so did the ability to efficiently provide the service. SaaS is a software application hosted by a third party service provider and delivered to the end user. Many SaaS applications have reached critical mass and are affordable to nearly all segments, Saleforce.com for CRM and WebEx for video conferencing and Citrix for desktop collaboration are examples.

With SaaS, software applications are available as a network based service and users gain access rights to the use of the license. Users simply access the software through a WAN connection. The WAN connection can be as simple as a wireless Internet connection or as sophisticated as a layer two VPLS connection over GigE. WAN connectivity has improved as more technologies are increasingly more abundant with rich geographic coverage and increasing affordability. SaaS applications are also very adaptive to mobile and remote work forces. The SaaS provider is responsible for ensuring the security, data integrity, availability and performance of the application. Rapid technology refreshes and advancements are made available as they occur often. SaaS supports the physical separation of users from the applications, addresses concerns for latency issues related to geographic distribution of users from their applications.

Businesses clearly saw the value of SaaS because it allowed them the freedom to avoid the operating and capital costs they would have otherwise assumed by supporting the software applications themselves. Businesses avoid the cost of securing enterprise licenses, maintaining the application and performing ongoing patch and version upgrades. Also the technology infrastructure to support business applications requires substantial investment with many fixed costs including full time IT staff resources, power along with the capital requirements including servers, storage, and network to support the application(s). With SaaS, businesses minimize their risks, realize a faster implementation and with low start-up costs. Even more, users are guaranteed application access, processing speed, storage, development and network resources on demand all scalable with competitive service commitments.

The value proposition is simple and straightforward. Users transparently access their business critical applications without worrying about the back-end and simply pay by consumption. Similar to a utility, telecommunications services for example, SaaS is simple but works very well. Businesses can free staff, operating and capital budget to invest in growth initiatives. They are able to move the focus of their IT operations from a cost center to a revenue center, optimizing cost structures and adding greater levels manageability and control of costs. It adds a much richer level of simplicity.

Written by Alex Foster

In that past 12 months virtually every carrier has announced a Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) offering. Once a niche offering for interconnecting datacenters, VPLS has now gone mainstream. This is a great thing because it means more choices for organizations selecting a WAN architecture. However, it has also created a lot of confusion in the minds of CIOs and network architects. As the product manager of Cavalier's private networking solutions, I hear a lot of that confusion. Here I'll try to answer some of the most common questions about VPLS and investigate some of its benefits. In part 2 of this series I'll address some of the common misconceptions about VPLS and provide some criteria for determining when VPLS is a good option.

What is VPLS and how is it different than MPLS/ IP VPN?

The easiest way to answer this question is to compare VPLS to today's dominant WAN transport technology - MPLS-based IP VPNs. First the MPLS part: MPLS is a carrier backbone technology. From a carrier perspective MPLS does many wonderful things - it securely segments different traffic, it scales fantastically, it has fast failover times and virtually anything can be run on top of it. Because of these benefits every major carrier runs an MPLS core and any carrier-provided VPN service is likely going to be delivered using the carrier's MPLS network. IP VPN (standardized as RFC 2547bis) is the most common of these services.

When a firm buys an IP VPN service the carrier creates what is known as a virtual route forwarding (VFR) domain for that firm. A VRF is a set of customer locations that are in their own virtual network. The service provider maps particular physical ports (access circuits) into the customer's VRF as they turn up customer locations. The service is highly secure because the carrier routers append a tag to all customer traffic as it enters the carrier network, marking it as belonging to a specific VRF. Once tagged, traffic from one VRF can never be inadvertently forward to another VRF. This overlay of VRFs on to a shared MPLS backbone provides each customer with a private network. This private network works at the IP layer - the customer edge routers (CE) peer with the provider edge (PE) routers to advertise their routes to the carrier. The carrier's PE routers act as the default gateway to the CE - traffic is forwarded and the CE inspects the destination IP to discover where on the MPLS network to route the traffic. In many ways, IP VPN is best thought of as giving each firm its own private internet as everything operates at the IP layer, unlike traditional WANs (ATM, Frame Relay) that operate at Layer 2.

Conceptual diagram of an IP VPN. Note distinct VRF routing instances for each enterprise. (Alcatel 2008)

VPLS takes the same concepts of MPLS but applies them at Layer 2 to create an Ethernet-based virtual private network. Unlike IP VPN that works by creating Virtual Route Forwarding instances (collections of customer IP routes), VPLS creates Virtual Bridging instances. Virtual Bridging instances are a collection of customer MAC addresses at various endpoints on the WAN. So unlike IP VPNs that learn what IP subnets are at each location through route peering between the PE and CE, VPLS networks learn what MAC addresses are at each location through MAC learning much like a LAN switch.

Conceptual diagram of VPLS . Note distinct Virtual Bridging instances for each enterprise. (Alcatel 2008)

While this sounds like a small detail, it isn't. There are several key differences:

1) No service provider involvement at Layer 3 - No need to setup BGP or static routes with the carrier, you simply forward Ethernet frames and the carrier's network learns how to get them to their destination.

2) Your WAN now behaves like one large Ethernet network - Troubleshooting and problem segmentation between the enterprise and the carrier gets really easy. The service provider is responsible for learning MAC addresses and forwarding frames and this can be easily tested during turn up or troubleshooting.

3) The enterprise is responsible for any routing - Unlike IP VPNs where the customer edge routers generally send all traffic to the CE (and hence have only one or two routes), the customer edge devices will now need to have a way to route traffic to each site. That may come in the form of a large routing table with many remotes or one or two hub sites that all traffic passes through.

So what are some of the reasons to consider VPLS?

1) Control over your routing protocols - most companies run EIGRP or OSPF as their internal routing protocol. Most service providers require PE/ CE routing to be done with BGP which enterprises tend to have limited expertise with. Even if a provider supports EIGRP or OSPF there tend to be significant limitations in what functionality is supported.

2) Simplicity and familiarity - VPLS is delivered as Ethernet and behaves like a LAN. Most organizations tend to have much greater familiarity with these technologies than they do with WAN interfaces, layer 3 routing and complex IP VPN architectures. VPLS takes problems that would be complex in an IP VPN environment and allows you to solve them the same way you would on your LAN.

3) Easier migration path from existing Layer 2 WANs - if the current WAN is ATM, frame relay or point- to- point, VPLS architectures will be a much more logical replacement that requires less re-architecture than IP VPN.

4) Transparently extend subnets between physical locations - need to move a server from one location to another without changing the address or moving the subnet? Ever wanted to move one half of a cluster into a colocation environment without buying a dedicated point- to- point link? These feats are near impossible with IP VPN but trivial with VPLS.

5) Segmentation and isolation -When using VLANs on top of a VPLS service a company can create a large number of virtual WANs. This can be used by a centralized IT group to securely segment different types of traffic over the WAN or to give a number of different divisions their own WAN with full layer 2 control. Although this is technically possible with IP VPNs as well it tends to be far more complex and requires significant coordination with the service provider.

6) Faster convergence time - for locations with multiple links VPLS can generally be configured for much faster convergence than IP VPNs. Using OSPF VPLS networks can be tuned for convergence times of about 1 - 5 seconds versus a typical best case for IP VPN more on the order of 20 to 30 seconds as the routing updates have to propagate across the PEs and then back to the CEs.

7) Non-IP traffic - this is a huge headache with IP VPNs requiring GRE tunneling. With VPLS, if your traffic can be encapsulated as Ethernet you don't need to tunnel.

In the next post I'll discuss some other factors to help you choose between VPLS and IP VPNs and then dive into some of the benefits above at a more technical level.

Written by Wendy Mushow

Managing telecommunications service installations is significantly more complex for organizations that are distributed geographically. Communication networks have become the backbone of their business operations. Whether an organization has just a few locations or hundreds of sites distributed nationally, precautions must be taken to ensure a smooth transition. Complications during service installation can result in wasted time, lost money, and aggravation.

At Cavalier, one of our biggest strengths is that we are large enough to command the strictest level of service from our technology partners while still being small enough to cut through the red tape that often binds our larger competitors. Everyone involved in our service installation process has quick access to executive level resources from all departments. Access to these resources means faster implementation times and proactive solutions for our customers.

I recently interviewed Henry Gonzalez, the head of Cavalier's Multi-site & Complex Service Installation Group. The purpose of the interview was to learn some of his best practice recommendations for IT management during service transition and what you should expect from a service provider with multi-location expertise. My Q & A session with Henry follows:

1) What are the most important qualities to look for in choosing a telecommunications service provider for a company with multiple locations?
Customers with multiple locations should make sure they understand the provider's policy for on-site visits. Many providers attempt to only make a single visit per customer location to install the service, verify the service is working and make the cutover. This is generally not a realistic strategy and typically leaves the customer in a situation where they need to transitions their services to a circuit that has not been verified that services are working. At Cavalier, we pre-plan to accommodate two visits per site. The first visit is to install and verify service and the second visit is made to make the final cutover. In the interim, we generally leave circuit monitoring equipment in place to ensure they are functioning properly.

An additional measure of quality you should take into account is how flexible and confident the provider is in their ability to step outside of their standard processes and customize their practices around the needs of each client.

2) How are the dates of service installation coordinated? What if the customer doesn't want all of their locations to be transitioned at the same time?

Cavalier's implementation processes are driven by the customer's preferred service activation timeline. At the beginning of each engagement, we schedule an installation kickoff with the customer to determine that all of the factors that will influence their service transition have been confirmed and accounted for in the process. Using this information we prepare an implementation plan specific to their needs and coordinate each of the steps throughout the project lifecycle up to the execution of services for each location.

3) Who should be involved in project coordination from the customer's side? When should they get a 3^rd party technology vendor involved?

Traditionally service providers work with the customer's data integrator and phone system vendors. Cavalier does this as well. We are unique in that we are prepared and willing to accommodate customers who may be facing challenges with these resources. We have a professional support staff, which specialize in voice and data services and are willing to assist customers in areas where a service provider may not be willing to engage with them. From extending demarcation points and moving jumper cables, to offering tier two support on router and/or firewall services, we are there for our customers when it matters most.

4) What measures are taken within your group to reduce down time during service installation?

Cavalier conducts pre-tests which are coordinated for the dates and times of service cutover. They are transparent to the customer. These steps help to proactively identify and defuse challenges, which would otherwise come to light on the day of the actual service installation. Another big step Cavalier has taken to reduce downtime and generally ease the transition is to handoff all services as Ethernet to the customer. Many service providers handoff MPLS and dedicated internet services at the T1 level, forcing many enterprise customers to deal with WAN protocols they may not be experienced with supporting. In contrast, we install circuit demarcation equipment for all of our products that convert the WAN handoff to Ethernet, which every IT department is familiar with as a native protocol. This dramatically decreases the complexity of the cutover. It also makes it very easy to either re-use existing equipment or cost-effectively deploy side-by-side equipment during the migration phase. Ethernet equipment tends to be less expensive than T1 or DS3 interfacing equipment.

5) How are the data circuits tested at the customer's location? During MPLS or VPLS installation how can you be sure the customer's private network is working the way it was designed?

As discussed earlier in the interview, Cavalier has a two phase approach on every installation. The first is dispatching technicians to the customer's location to pre-install premise equipment. During the second phase we conduct head- to- head testing of the actual circuits and ping connectivity of the MPLS/VPLS services to our core servers. We also dispatch our technicians on the coordinated date and time of actual installation and we provide a conference bridge with a technical support team, who are prepared to assess and address any potential obstacles. This approach enables us to proactively identify and alleviate any potential challenges to service activation outside of normal business hours. The result is a smooth and positive migration. Our customers' business operations are not interrupted and they are able to take advantage of their new services on the schedule that is best for them.

Written by Patrick Messick

As companies look more and more towards reducing travel expenses while maintaining productivity, the perfect solution is implementing Audio, Video and Web conferencing. This article will help provide its readers with a better understanding of the benefits to going "green" and how Cavalier's conferencing solution can help you to achieve this goal.

To start, we should all rethink the way we meet. If your company is like most around the world, you are feeling it. That uncomfortable pinch is the sour economy, telling you that it's time to tighten the purse strings.

How is your company responding to the challenges of the current economic environment? How can you follow cost-reduction strategies, work around budget cuts and survive frozen headcount and salaries and still meet your long-term objectives?

One thing you can control is the hard and soft costs of travel. Creating and implementing a travel reduction plan will help you manage those expenses. But how do you make changes and cut back without negatively affecting productivity? The answer is conferencing.

Did You Know?
If you’ve spent any time in the airport recently or had to hop in a car to drive across town for a meeting, you know that the costs can quickly add up.

The average cost for a domestic business trip in 2010 is expected to surpass $1000/person; for international trips, you are looking at more than $2800. Travelers lose 4-6 hours of productive work time per trip.

• 15% of business travelers surveyed said that business travel made them LESS productive, while over 50% admitted that some of their trips were not necessary.


• Sure, there are some instances when seeing someone face-to-face is the only way to get your business done, but, in many cases, you can achieve the same results with conferencing. Every day, around the world, conferencing:


• Limits unnecessary travel and is cheaper than a business trip.


• Does away with lost time at airports and boosts worker productivity


• Gives employees more flexibility to manage their work/life balance, in turn improving job satisfaction and breeding loyalty.


• Eliminates CO2 emissions. (The estimated effect of flying just ONE passenger cross-country is almost 2000 lbs.)

CONSIDER THESE FACTS
Increasingly, we are spending more time on the road, which creates more pollution and changes the landscape of our planet.

• Commuting distances are increasing as employees move farther from the workplace. The U.S. Census Bureau reported the following states with the longest commutes.



• In the United States, the average commuter spends more time commuting each year than on vacation. Using an average commuting distance of 18 miles each way and an average highway mileage of 23.4 mpg, the daily fuel consumption due to commuting is at least 1.5 gallons for a round trip. A five-day commuting workweek releases more than 5,154 lbs of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year, per employee.
• Direct costs and harmful carbon dioxide emissions are rising as a result of the following variables:

• Planes: A transatlantic flight from London to New York creates on average 1.2 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.


• Cars: A gas-fueled car traveling 500 miles per week creates on average nine tons of carbon dioxide per year.


• Trains: Commuting by train 350 miles every week creates on average 1.2 tons of carbon dioxide per year.

Now that you have been educated with some hard facts, what can you do to change? One way to accomplish this is to enable employees to work remotely. Audio, web and video conferencing services allow employees to work from home and stay connected to co-workers, customers, vendors and partners.

Telecommuting is catching on. According to research conducted by WorldatWork through The Dieringer Research Group, the number of Americans whose employers allow them to work from home at least one day per month increased from 9.9 million to 12.4 million in 2006. Conferencing technology allows people to participate in sales meetings, project updates, and contract reviews without being in the office.

Despite this trend, the American workforce spends an average of 250 million hours on the road each month traveling between off-site meetings. By using conferencing as an alternative to travel, workers save time and money, and ultimately increase their productivity. In a poll conducted by Harris Interactive, when asked about environmentally friendly alternatives to business related travel, 79% of respondents indicated they would likely utilize conferencing technology, while only 48% and 32% responded they would be likely to carpool or utilize public transportation, respectively. Conferencing is not just a cost-effective alternative to expensive traveling and hotel costs, but a realistic approach to minimizing the impact of everyday business on the environment.

Source: InterCall