Why ethernet WAN transport?
Aref Meddeb · IEEE Communications Magazine · 2005
The ubiquitous and plug-and-play characteristics of Ethernet provide a unique opportunity for service providers to-offer a variety of innovative and affordable application-centric services, resulting in a much broader networking culture. Before that can really happen, Ethernet has to overcome some challenging obstacles and prove efficient support of SLAs, at least similar to that offered by traditional layer 2 WAN technologies. In this article we describe some of the most commonly used WAN transport technologies. We compare Ethernet WAN transport to these traditional WAN technologies. We discuss QoS, CAM, security, and resilience issues. Pros and cons of Ethernet WAN transport are also enumerated.