Research Highlights the Imminent Demise of Legacy Networks   5/16/2005 - 623 views,

EGHAM, England, May 16/PRNewswire/ — Viatel has today announced the results of an independent survey which
highlighted the imminent demise of legacy networks. Of the IT directors
surveyed 70% of organisations are looking at alternative technologies for the
wide area network to help reduce costs and consolidate networking
technologies, and this rises to 90% in the retail, distribution and transport
sectors.

The results therefore suggest real discontent with legacy networks built
up over time. The research also showed that 79% were discouraged by the cost
of upgrading when it came to considering extra capacity for the WAN, due to
the costs associated with jumping to the next level of bandwidth. The
remainder were discouraged by the inflexibility of legacy networks and the
length of time it takes to upgrade.

The issues then are two fold; not only are companies considering
alternative technologies for the WAN, but they have also been discouraged
from investing further in their existing infrastructure. This also goes some
way to explaining why companies are looking at alternatives; legacy networks
are seen as costly and inflexible and are actually deterring companies from
adding extra capacity, which will therefore have an impact on the
technologies and applications they can effectively implement.

“The death of ATM has been on the cards for a while now and it is only a
matter of time before frame relay and leased lines start to play only a
marginal role in networks, as companies don’t want to have to pay huge sums
of money for bandwidth they might only need in a year’s time,” commented
Roberto Bonanzinga, senior vice president, business development and
marketing, Viatel.

Companies are therefore faced with a huge headache when adding extra
capacity to the WAN and compounding this is that almost half of those
questioned confessed that worrying about applications that require large
amounts of bandwidth, such as storage and back up, kept them awake at night.

Companies are therefore caught between a rock and a hard place; they are
faced with emerging business requirements on the one hand and outdated
networks on the other. This is particularly evident in the retail,
distribution and transport sectors where the majority of companies are
concerned specifically by the cost and flexibility of bandwidth. This may in
part be due to the distributed nature of their businesses, which necessitates
high capacity, cost effective bandwidth to connect their sites, and also
suggests why such a high majority are considering alternatives to the WAN.

“Legacy networks aren’t capable of meeting today’s business requirements
and therefore companies need to look at more cost effective solutions that
will allow them to buy extra capacity as they need it and therefore provide
them with the necessary power for the latest bandwidth hungry applications,”
continued Bonanzinga.

Ethernet looks set to become the main alternative to legacy networks with
89% of survey respondents stating that they would consider Ethernet for their
wide area networks. With 94% of financial services companies considering the
technology, it is clear that it is seen as a secure and established
technology.

“Businesses looking at upgrading to Ethernet need to be aware that an
immediate switch will cause disruption and should therefore look for an easy
migration path, for which a multi-service platform will be necessary,”
continued Bonanzinga.

The survey was conducted by Vanson Bourne and represented the opinions of
one hundred IT Directors.