[May 13, 2008] Lightstorm Networks Sparks Discussion Around Momentum in Carrier Ethernet Space Tweet WALTHAM, Mass. --(Business Wire)-- Lightstorm Networks, enabling next generation packet network services with carrier-grade Ethernet silicon, today announced that it has recently concluded a highly successful webinar attended by nearly 600 market leaders. The webinar, sponsored by the IEEE Communications Society, addressed the current needs of the carrier Ethernet marketplace, potential pitfalls and clear areas of opportunity. The webinar offered perspectives by three leading companies from within the carrier (Verizon), the system OEM (Ciena) and the communications semiconductor (Lightstorm) ecosystem. The interest in the challenges from migrating from a SONET/TDM network to an Ethernet/Packet network is significant as evidenced by the webinar attendees who came from leading system OEMs, carriers, Fortune-100 end-user organizations and universities. Real world solutions are now being deployed and interested parties are studying the lessons learned to gain perspective on the differences between "carrier grade" Ethernet and simple enterprise Ethernet. While the latest carrier standards for PBB, PBB-TE, VPLS/VPWS, and OAM offer tremendous potential as networks migrate, a clear understanding of how these protocols are being used and implemented is critical at this stage. "Service providers and systems vendors alike need to build out smart, scalable options with lower total cost of ownership (TCO)," said Wade Appelman, vice president of sales and marketing for Lightstorm. "We have been recognized for our flexible, full class carrier grade Ethernet since the launch of our Brooklyn-10 device last year. It is gratifying to have such a diverse audience attending this event and achieve increased attention and valuation from the market. Working with the other presenters from Verizon and Ciena to develop the content was highly engaging and I truly appreciated their insights," he concluded. As addressed in the webinar, critical to the success of deploying carrier grade Ethernet is the assurance that the Ethernet elements have the carrier grade resiliency, scalability, and protection that are the underpinnings of today's SONET network. However, carriers acknowledge that concerns surrounding the ability for Ethernet to mimic the key attributes of their current networks must be properly addressed before the vision of a true Ethernet network is widely deployed. Key to enabling these attributes are the six key requirements an Ethernet switch must possess to be considered "carrier grade": 1. Limited or highly managed oversubscription. 2. Ability to properly identify and prioritize various traffic types. 3. Must avoid dropping high priority and control traffic under temporary congestion of at least 100ms 4. Scales VLAN and MAC address sizes to meet metro usage requirements 5. Capable of rapid failover and performance monitoring (target is 50ms SONET "Gold Standard) 6. Supports latest carrier Ethernet standards Lightstorm's Brooklyn-10 demonstrates all these criteria and unlike custom application specific ICs (ASICs) or field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) the Brooklyn-10 is leading a new wave of convergence with its ability to guarantee service delivery, unprecedented scalability, and high reliability. A flexible and highly integrated switch, the Brooklyn-10 supports Layer 2 VPN services across the metro and wide area network. Development costs are lower, time to market is compressed and energy efficiency is realized. To learn more or to view an archive of the webinar, go to http://www.comsoc.org/webinar/. About Lightstorm Networks Founded by seasoned systems, software and semiconductor executives, Lightstorm Networks is a leading provider of highly integrated semiconductor solutions enabling high-performance carrier-grade Ethernet networks. We design, develop and supply complete semiconductor solutions as well as provide hardware and software subsystems. Lightstorm relies on the vast experience of its world-class design team to provide top-quality silicon products to our telecommunications partners. We have an unrivalled wealth of experience in developing networking semiconductor products that are both leading edge and first to market. Our inclusion in international standards bodies and our ability to leverage emerging technologies ensures our products can enable next-generation carrier Ethernet services. For more information please visit www.lightstormnetworks.com. [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]