In Brief Applications UC & VoIP Challenge Cut telecom cost by finding an alternative to costly MPLS Improve Internet connectivity speeds Fortify business continuity Solution Mushroom Networks Truffle Internet bonding appliance Benefits Telecom bill cut WAN and LAN speeds are multiplied Diversified connections enable, proactive, unattended failover when extreme slow-downs or outages occur Simplified scalability that enabled easy future growth According to research firms Infonetics and Transparency Research, the enterprise Unified Communications (UC) penetration is growing around 15% annually. Similarly, Voice over IP (VoIP) usage in enterprises is expected to jump 3 times over the next 5 years. UC and VoIP offer a lot of benefits that attracts enterprises and Small and Medium sized Businesses (SMBs), fueling demand for these services. However, in order to achieve the projected growth targets, the industry needs to solve some of the existing technical challenges that directly impact UC and VoIP adoption. More specifically, reliable and scalable UC/VoIP solutions require dependable and cost effective Wide Area Network (WAN) connectivity, at affordable prices, since the real-time communication applications heavily rely on high performance of the WAN with advanced Quality of Service (QoS) features. Challenge: Today s ISP market for WAN services is dominated by small number of incumbent service providers that are practically monopolies in their operating regions. This has created market dynamics where enterprise grade WAN connectivity options for businesses are limited, or if available, have very high total cost of ownership. For SMBs on the other-hand, it is common for the business to rely on DSL or a cable modem for their WAN connectivity. DSL based technologies suffer from limited uplink capacity. Majority of DSL lines (including the most modern VDSL flavors) are restricted in performance because of the length and quality of the copper wires from the Telco DSLAM. DSL lines are usually limited to, at most, several mega bits per second (Mbps) for the uplink rates. Given today s cloud heavy Software as a Service (SaaS) applications and growing dependency on the Internet for large set of business applications, several Mbps of an uplink pipe is simply not large enough to support all the cloud applications as well as the UC and VoIP applications. It also lacks the QoS framework to support high Service Level Agreements (SLA).
Single DSL lines are limited to, at most, several mega bits per second (Mbps) for the uplink rates... Single cable modem can provide higher bandwidth, however, suffer from other shortcomings such as spontaneous high latency, high jitter. MPLS lacks ISP diversity, suffers unavoidable downtimes and suffers from high operating costs. Cable modems can provide higher bandwidth, however, suffer from other shortcomings such as spontaneous high latency, high jitter. Various factors contribute to this low quality service levels that cable Internet services present. It is very common for cable equipments in the service provider network to be misconfigured. One of the most important factors that causes fluctuations in performance is the fact that Cable transport is a shared medium. In essence the several hundred Mbps pipe that is promised to each client is over-provisioned at the last-mile and therefore suffers from performance as a function of the bandwidth usage of others (neighbor businesses) on the same cable network. Any connectivity option that has performance variations, will create problems for UC and VOIP applications without the presence of a technology that can orchestrate the resources intelligently. For branch offices of larger enterprises, all of the above challenges still apply, as similar to SMBs, the branch offices are practically offices that may have limited bandwidth options. Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) is a connectivity option that is sometimes used by enterprises to connect their branch offices to their private data centers and head-quarter offices. MPLS is run over legacy transmission medium, but rather than using IP for routing the packets, a layer2 switching fabric is leveraged to get packets from point A to point B. MPLS is touted as a private network as it goes through the service provider network of switches and packets are being routed through those switches based on the MPLS label tags as opposed to IP headers. MPLS is usually marketed as a high end, high SLA service, however, the underlying transport is essentially identical to broadband lines. MPLS also suffers from dependency on a single service provider as it can t support multi-carrier diversity. Aside from the public Internet congestion and service provider support ticket SLAs, other characteristics such as the downtimes, bandwidth and various other performance metrics can be quite similar for MPLS and other public WAN connection alternatives.
Broadband Bonding appliances are capable of aggregating bandwidth and providing multipath multiplexing that enables the use and intelligent orchestration of multiple WAN connections. the single connection can leverage the sum of all the line speeds and can take advantage of better latency and jitter that is optimized accross all WAN links Built-in Application Armor technology shields any negative fluctuations of individual ISP links from the application layer, and therefore provides seamless and continuous end-user experience. There is one clear difference between MPLS and the public WAN options, however, and that is the order of magnitude higher price of MPLS. As enterprises expand their video conferencing, UC and VOIP solutions beyond just a few users, many can t afford the costs associated with MPLS. The new WAN Virtualization and Broadband Bonding technologies provide enterprises access to high-speed WAN connections that are reliable and are available at low cost. Solution: Broadband Bonding appliances are capable of aggregating bandwidth and providing multipath multiplexing that enables the use and intelligent orchestration of multiple WAN connections. The set of WAN connections that are bonded can include both existing private WANs and various other Internet WAN links such as DSL, Cable, fiber and wireless. This lets enterprises dynamically maximize WAN resources and significantly increase network redundancy, all while reducing operating costs. Bonding Internet lines into a single WAN connection and marrying the bonded WAN pipe with an intelligent resource orchestrator ensures faster connectivity, because the single connection can leverage the sum of all the line speeds and can take advantage of better latency and jitter that is optimized across all WAN links. Imagine a VPN session connecting an enterprise branch office to the public or private data center. This single VPN session can be transmitted over all the available WAN resources, whereby some packets of the VPN session will traverse different WAN links, that is intelligently orchestrated by the Broadband Bonding routers at either end of the VPN, to optimize for throughput, latency, jitter as well as other metrics. Beyond the sheer WAN speed improvement, broadband bonding also enables built-in reliability at various levels. Built-in Application Armor TM feature shields packet loss or any other negative fluctuations of individual ISP links from
the bonded tunnel is being orchestrated to flow around loss, latency, jitter and congestion. Built-in Application Armor technology shields any negative fluctuations of individual ISP links from the application layer, and therefore provides seamless and continuous end-user experience. the application layer, and therefore provides seamless and continuous end-user experience. In essence, the bonded tunnel is being orchestrated to flow around loss, latency, jitter and congestion. This enables enterprise network operators with a set-it-and-forget-it type management of the WAN connectivity. The intelligent latency and jitter management is especially important for real-time applications such as UC and VoIP. With modern Broadband Bonding routers, the adaptive Quality of Service (QoS) components are an integral part of the WAN Virtualization framework. Carved out bandwidth will be dedicated to real-time traffic only when such traffic is present, otherwise, leaving that carved-out yet unused bandwidth available for other non-real-time applications. The ability to dynamically create a clean virtual overlay bandwidth pipe within the bonded tunnel tremendously enhances the end-user experience including real-time applications such as UC and VOIP. Broadband Bonding also enables IT managers to create ISP diversity in their WAN architecture. Since Broadband Bonding routers don t require any ISP coordination, WAN networks can be created via combining various Internet links from any ISP and therefore adding ISP diversity to the network, relieving the dependency on a single service provider. Compared to premium priced MPLS services, broadband WAN links such as DSL, FiOS and cable present tremendous value once the unpredictable performance characteristics are address via orchestration of the WAN links by the WAN Virtualization layer (such as the Broadband Bonding router). Through the WAN Virtualization layer, the bonded WAN connection will support high bandwidth, low latency, low jitter and predictable performance characteristics at a fraction of the capital expenditure (CAPEX) and the operating cost (OPEX) of an MPLS upgrade path. Cost ratios can be an order or sometimes orders of magnitude lower when comparing Broadband Bonding to MPLS.
Conclusion: Broadband Bonding technology transforms enterprise WAN networks and enables cost effective and scalable WAN connectivity suitable for VoIP and UC applications. Modern Broadband Bonding routers integrate powerful QoS features and therefore is the most powerful way of orchestrating a multicarrier WAN architecture. Faster WAN speeds, better latency and jitter metrics, as well as high 9s reliability for the WAN can be achieved, all while reducing operating costs. About Mushroom Networks, Inc Mushroom Networks is a San Diego, California-based company with the mission to provide innovative networking solutions. Our products and services are focused on a range of networking solutions for enterprises and small/ medium sized businesses in various industries. Our solutions bridge the technology gap to the future by enabling applications today, that are otherwise not possible. Mushroom Networks was founded in 2004 as a spin-off from the University of California at San Diego. Mushroom Networks products are based on the unique and patented Broadband Bonding technology developed by our engineering team through extensive research & development. Mushroom Networks Product & Technology Awards: 2013 Mushroom Networks, Inc. All rights reserved. Mushroom Networks products are protected under Mushroom Networks patents as well as patents pending. Mushroom Networks, Broadband Bonding, Truffle, Application Armor, the Mushroom Networks logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Mushroom Networks.