There are many more
entities to manage, service-level issues that predominate, and new mechanisms for
Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM) required.
As Ethernet is moving down market, to small and medium businesses especially,
significant cost overhead is introduced to manage these services. This cost is not particularly
unique to Ethernet; earlier technologies such as TDM/Private Line, ATM, and
Frame Relay faced similar challenges, i.e., how to keep operational expenditure low
while delivering services. Ethernet will also have to introduce new ???intelligent??? edge
devices to more economically enable wide-scale deployment. What all this suggests is
54 Services for Ethernet, ATM, private line typically refer to all services that employ these technologies as
a handoff.
Ethernet: From LAN to the WAN 43
that Ethernet requires additional ???carrier-class??? attributes before it??™s ready for larger
scale deployments in Service Provider networks.
Overcoming The Barriers
As the value of Ethernet beyond the LAN is becoming increasingly accepted, there are
numerous activities underway to overcome the shortcomings just identified and truly
transform Ethernet into a mass market service.
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