Bob Metcalfe leads launch of Carrier Ethernet 2.0

Bob Metcalfe, the inventor of Ethernet, led a set of presentations launching a new generation of Ethernet: Carrier Ethernet 2.0 (CE 2.0). Metcalfe said: "Perhaps most remarkable is that, almost 40 years later, the growth of Ethernet is so strong and innovation is still hard at work. You know, every time we look at a reinvention of Ethernet we are always left with the same conclusion: this is just the beginning."

MEF President Nan Chen explained how the first generation of CE standardised Ethernet services for Service Providers and carriers. He said: "CE 1.0 is about standardisation of Ethernet services. CE 2.0, which is compatible to 1.0, is characterised by three powerful and standardised features: multiple Classes of Service (also known multi-CoS), interconnect and manageability over eight services, which is more than twice as many supported in 1.0."

Chen said that the new services "standardise performance objectives across a variety of geographic performance tiers and applications. This results in improved quality of service and optimised efficiency on a global scale."

For example, Chen said: "the mobile backhaul implementation agreement creates a standard for efficient and reliable 4G mobile backhaul networks and services."

MEF board chairman Mike Volgende said: "Support of multiple Classes of Service itself is not new. Rather, it's standardisation with performance objectives for each service class defined which is new. So now you know what performance you can expect for each class supported. This means you can have consistent performance levels and associated SLAs no matter who you interconnect with."

Volgende said that cloud services providers would benefit because: "Efficient service delivery translates directly to cost savings and quality delivery of high-performance applications.

"Carrier Ethernet 2.0 represents a significant milestone in the industry partnering to enable delivery of next-generation Ethernet standards to the global marketplace."

Metcalfe concluded: "We would encourage everyone to join us here at MEF in changing the world again, with a new generation of Ethernet – CE 2.0."

NetEvents Garmisch, February 23/24th

Take a long look to the future

From Software Defined Networking to next generation Ethernet, from tomorrow’s cyber threats to a new era in consolidation… we are entering an era of massive transformation, and NetEvents Garmisch points the way

We live in interesting times, and this week’s NetEvents 2012 EMEA Press and Analyst Summit presents an outstanding program of visionary solutions and forward thinking on the hottest topics in ICT tomorrow and today.

Judge a revolution by the quality of its leaders: Deutsche Telekom, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Verizon, and Yahoo! got together to rethink networking and accelerate Software Defined Networking (SDN) standards and solutions. Their first conference was massively over-subscribed – a sign of a world hungry for this revolution. The Garmisch conference program begins with a keynote by Dan Pitt, one of SDN’s key champions – but he won’t have an easy ride as we also have Ian Keene from Gartner hot on his heels to debate the market politics that might muddy the Open Network Foundation’s waters.

The second day’s guest speaker, Carolyn Crandall from Riverbed Technology, will introduce a new, evolutionary concept in IT consolidation – and the challenges it presents to the enterprise. Other challenges debated include sessions on: datacenter transformation, managing change in the enterprise, and a new level of intelligent security solutions to meet fast evolving cyber threats.

“The only constant is change” is a quote dating back to Heraclitus, and in the IT world those constants include Moore’s Law and the on-going evolution of Ethernet. So what could be more remarkable than the presence at NetEvents Garmisch of Bob Metcalfe, the father of Ethernet, announcing not just an evolution but an actual new generation of Ethernet… Once more: “You heard it first at NetEvents!”.

The most intense competition arises at the interface between great currents – and “Mobile” and “Cloud” are the two most dynamic currents in IT

today. So we are especially privileged to end the program with Cisco’s Roland Klemann sharing his vision of the mobile cloud – following a final debate on boosting profitability from mobile services.

We look forward to two days of visionary presentations, lively debate and discussion with industry leaders and the top EMEA media. More than 50 ICT business publications are represented at this summit covering 12+ countries throughout the EMEA region. Stay tuned….

Can ZigBee succeed?

The killer app for ZigBee is energy management. That's according to Bob Metcalfe, to whom I've just been talking in Boston, at a gathering of the Metro Ethernet Forum.

Metcalfe is the inventor of Ethernet, the physical underpinning of pretty much every network on the planet, from your home Wi-Fi to the high-speed interconnects used in data centres and the international links that tie the world's telecommunications together.

Metcalfe's been a partner in VC firm Polaris Ventures since 2001, and one of his current projects is Amber Wireless, a company that develops ZigBee components. "As CSR is to Bluetooth, so Amber will be to Zigbee", was his comment.

CSR? Your mobile phone probably has a CSR-branded Bluetooth chip inside it -- the company claims to dominate the market for Bluetooth silicon.

So what's ZigBee? It's a 2.4GHz wireless technology that's designed to connect embedded devices. We're talking light switches, environmental sensors, solenoids and so on -- devices that currently tend to work standalone and whose operating principles are based on whatever is programmed into them at design time.

Metcalfe's a network guy so his take is that such devices need to be connected, not just for control purposes, which was the original rationale for the development of Zigbee, but also to manage their energy consumption.

It's probably fair to say that, since customers for ZigBee are designers and manufacturers of embedded devices, unless you're one of those, chances are you won't hear much about it. But Metcalfe's argument for ZigBee's likelihood of success is that there are some 10 billion embedded devices out there -- even more than the current tally of mobile phones.

Is he right? With the world now alert to the need for energy savings, it's possible. Metcalfe freely admits that the Ethernet label is slapped for marketing reasons on pretty much any networking technology these days, so the Ethernet name has in effect acquired a life that doesn't have a direct connection with Metcalfe's invention. So Ethernet's success outside of the local area network isn't all Metcalfe's doing.

As a predictor of the future too, his track record is mixed: he once reckoned that the Internet would be dead by 1996.

But then, no futurologist or analyst has ever been 100 percent correct and, on the energy front, it's more likely that Metcalfe is pretty much on the button. Whether Zigbee becomes a core technology in the struggle to sustain human activity and energy consumption on an overcrowded planet remains to be seen.

But his views on the future importance of video (plug, plug) must surely be spot-on though...