Ultra-high bandwidth connectivity is increasingly important as data consumption grows exponentially due to factors like remote work, cloud applications, and video streaming. This growth is straining existing networks and requiring new hybrid solutions that combine private networks with public cloud connectivity. Specialized terrestrial networks are also needed to connect submarine cables to inland data centers and allow content to reach end users globally. Forward-thinking companies are addressing these challenges through software-defined networks and virtualization to enable flexible, on-demand bandwidth provisioning.
2. Business IP Traffic, 2016–2021 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 CAGR
2016–2021
By Network Type (PB per Month)
Business Internet traffic 16,291 19,442 23,312 27,969 33,363 20%
Business managed IP traffic 3,789 4,161 4,543 4,930 5,236 10%
Source: Cisco VNI
Savvy enterprises across almost all key verticals
have long recognised that the data they hold and
the applications they use to manipulate it – whether
within on premise IT data centres or offsite in
public/private clouds and colocation facilities -
forms the life blood of their digital and commercial
operations.
Failure to proactively maintain the security, integrity
and real-time availability of this essential data can
threaten the very existence of any organisation.
So it has become good practice to replicate
mission-critical data in two or more geographically
separate data centres and deploy highly resilient
connectivity to them and between them.
However, when it comes to the wide area network,
flat or declining budgets and the changing nature
of bandwidth consumption, means that for many
international enterprises, connectivity has been
lagging behind the wider enterprise digitalisation
initiatives. For some organisations this means
their valuable information and applications remain
‘trapped’ inside data centres, or at the very least
hamstrung by an infrastructure that is far too
cumbersome for the dynamic demands of the
modern economy.
As the adoption of bandwidth hungry applications
such as real time video ramps up and the bulk
of WAN traffic shifts to internet-based services,
enterprises are waking up to the challenge of WAN
provisioning. So, forward looking organisations
are pressing to maintain capacity to and between
geographically distributed data centres in order
to achieve the required agility to compete, and as
a result these same companies are often the most
advanced in terms of digital transformation.
The global trend is for organisations to shift their
applications into the public cloud where they
can benefit from commodity platforms and easy
scalability. Meanwhile, the rise of the remote
and home workers means more users need
remote access to more enterprise applications
simultaneously. ‘Work’ is no longer a place you go,
it’s something you do from anywhere. As a result,
the applications relied upon by organisations
are becoming ‘heavier’. Consider that Unified
Communications (UC) is now a video rich
application and increasingly used for file sharing,
encouraging (real time) collaboration, while
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) tools can
shift hundreds of megabytes of data at a time. In
fact, both of these applications are increasingly
‘cloudified’ or consumed as a service over the
internet, further contributing to the rise in IP traffic
on the corporate network.
The challenge of spiralling global data
consumption
There’s no shortage of statistics acknowledging
the scale of the challenge posed by global
consumption of data and they are all pretty
daunting. The latest Cisco Visual Networking Index:
Forecast and Methodology, 2016–20211
predicts
that business IP traffic will grow at a CAGR of 21%
from 2016 to 2021. Increased adoption of advanced
video communications will be itself responsible for
a threefold increase in business IP traffic over the
same time frame.
To give some indication of the enterprise shift to
web-based applications and Software as a Service
(SaaS), the Cisco report highlights that business
internet traffic will grow at more than double the
pace of IP WAN. Specifically, IP WAN will grow at
a CAGR of 10%, compared with a CAGR of 20%
2
3. for fixed line business internet traffic and 41% for
mobile business internet traffic. This last statistic
really shows the impact that wireless is having on
the working environment.
There are a few insights that can be gleaned from
this information. One is that despite the fact that
internet applications are significant, and in some
cases dominant, they do not account for the totality
of traffic and will not for the foreseeable future. This
means hybrid infrastructure will continue to be the
norm, driving increased demand for both private
WAN and internet/cloud connectivity, and in the
latter case, connectivity into multiple clouds.
This speaks to the complex nature of digital
transformation. The criticality of global
interconnection to this requirement of parallel
access to on premises infrastructure and cloud-
hosted services, stresses the vital importance of the
network for survival.
The multi-infrastructure design approach
businesses are pursuing puts the focus on one
constant component that needs to be efficiently
architected – connectivity. An important
consideration is that when it comes to connectivity,
raw capacity is not always enough. The quality or
features of the connectivity also play a role. For
example, UC features are very sensitive to latency
and jitter - metrics that reflect the performance
of the network, and are therefore, impacted by
a traffic-laden network. That is, a busy network
will negatively affect the quality of a particular
UC service. Simply put, the need to provide for
increased internet applications and remote access,
as well as guaranteeing adequate application
performance puts a huge strain on the network.
Unsurprisingly, the documented growth differs from
region to region. According to Cisco, business IP
traffic is forecast to grow fastest in North America,
at a CAGR of 23%, versus a global average of 21%. In
terms of volume, Asia Pacific is leading the charge
at 17EB per month, with North America following
close behind at 14EB per month2
.
What’s interesting about these figures is that they
identify the two regions responsible for producing a
significant amount of the world’s data. And in many
cases this data will be content.
Impact: The combination of globalisation
and digitisation
In Capacity Intelligence’s Asia Wholesale Report
20173
, 75% of wholesale respondents to the
study said video and music streaming were the
main drivers of capacity growth for data in Asia,
followed closely by social media (72%). With
regionally produced content seen as the number
one opportunity for 75% of respondents, many
businesses and by association, many carriers are
looking to export this traffic to consumers in other
regions.
This trend is also true of other regions, particularly
North America. Andrew Edison, Vice President,
Wholesale at Colt Technology Services, notes that
the combination of globalisation and digitisation
is increasing demand in the developed world as
well as the developing world for intercontinental
connectivity. Importantly, this also highlights the
importance of collaboration between submarine
networks and specialist terrestrial networks as a
vital tool to help provide access to all the key data
centres inland. This is not just for wholesale carriers
Video and music
streaming
75%
Content is
the number
one export
Main drivers for
wholesale
capacity demand
in Asia:
Social media
72%
Export of regionally
produced content is
seen as the number
one opportunity for
75% of wholesale
networks in Asia
Source: Capacity Intelligence
Asia Wholesale Report 2017
3
4. to aggregate their traffic terrestrially but also for
enterprises to get their content closer to the end
consumer.
“It’s partnerships between specialist players that are
critical, and these partnerships will need to extend
across several disparate ecosystems,” says Edison.
“The subsea cables will only get traffic so far. Once
they hit land, a specialist terrestrial network will
need to step in to provide access and increasingly
an on-demand capability to all the key data centres
inland for that content to be aggregated and
stored.”
Coastal data centre clusters are attractive targets
for subsea cable landing points, with places like
Marseille fulfilling a role as the gateway between
Europe and the Middle East and Asia, Helsinki
providing a landing point for Russian traffic and a
booming business in data centre clusters expanding
across the Nordics and Iceland. There is a similar
situation in Hong Kong and Singapore, with the
latter acting as the new hub for Asia subsea
interconnectivity, with over 20 cables landing in the
country.
Under water or in the sky, connectivity
requirements are the same
In the wireless space, the scenario playing out
follows a comparable trend. Forthcoming 5G
technology promises much, with research house
IHS Markit estimating that 5G has the potential to
unlock up to $12.3t in revenue across a broad range
of industries, representing about 4.6% of all global
real output in 2035.
Inevitably, everything will be connected – from
cars to lampposts; hospitals to factories; vending
machines to weather sensors to fitness trackers. All
of these devices will generate data, which will have
to be transported somewhere.
As is often the case with wireless technology, much
of the focus has been on the air interface – the
last mile of connectivity – and whatever blistering
speeds it promises. But once this data has moved
from the source to the antenna or base station, it
needs to be backhauled to an aggregation point
where it can be stored and manipulated. This
aggregation point will typically be a data centre or
cloud, and in the case of real time critical traffic,
such as that from connected cars, a computation
will need to take place and a response sent back to
the source device in real time. This creates a critical
demand for secure, resilient, reliable, low latency
backhaul connectivity between the antenna and the
data centre.
Mobile operators have spent eye watering sums on
licenses for 3G and 4G spectrum and more again
on radio equipment to support such deployments,
at the expense of the support infrastructure.
According to PWC: “The backhaul and aggregation
networks have become a bottleneck after 20 years
of neglect. Instead of investing in backhaul and
aggregation, most mobile operators have focused
their investments on additional mobile base
stations, new technologies, and spectrum licenses.”4
As a result, mobile operators will have to partner
with backhaul specialists that have dense fibre
networks in key urban areas, as unquestionably,
fibre is the best solution for small-cell backhaul, so
where it is available and cost effective, it typically
wins over alternative wireless solutions.
Increasing complexity of global
interconnects
The increased reliance on data centres and clouds
for storing, aggregating and computing data
highlights the criticality of global interconnection
and increased complexity of parallel access to on
premises infrastructure and cloud-hosted services.
The Global Interconnection Index, published by
Equinix in 20175
, stresses the vital importance
of interconnection for digitally transforming
businesses, defining interconnection bandwidth
as the total capacity provisioned to privately
and directly exchange traffic with a diverse set
of counterparties and providers at distributed IT
exchange points.
Equinix projects that by the year 2020, worldwide
interconnection bandwidth used to conduct
scalable digital business will grow to over
5,000Tbps, fast outpacing the growth of overall
global IP traffic, the internet and MPLS, today’s
leading private network model. What this means
is connectivity into and between data centres and
clouds is paramount.
“As business models become increasingly
distributed and dependent on the real-time
engagement of many more users, partners and
service providers, a company’s ability to transform
into a digital business has become a matter of
survival,” the study warns.
4
5. “Organisations must take swift and decisive action
to scale their digital platforms or risk extinction.
And the only way to do that is through dynamic,
on-demand, anytime, anywhere interconnection.
This means deploying IT traffic exchange points
that integrate direct private connections between
counterparties and providers. These traffic
exchange points are hosted in carrier-neutral data
centre campuses with distributed, co-located IT
components. Without this vital fuel, digital business
falters.”
The report forecasts that between 2016 and 2020
the division between interconnect provisioned
by the enterprise segment versus the wholesale
segment will shift in favour of enterprises, which
will take just over half of the global capacity.
Interestingly though, the vast majority of that will
be used to interconnect to network providers so as
to rewire their network topology for digital, with a
growing presence of direct connections to cloud
providers.
The growing influence of colocation-
based interconnection
What’s clear is that multiple ecosystems will need
to be interconnected for business of all kinds to
remain competitive and this will likely be via a
complex, hybrid infrastructure for the foreseeable
future.
One of the key findings by Bob Gill, vice president
and agenda manager in Gartner’s Infrastructure
Strategies group was, ‘The ability to integrate
multiple applications, data types and data sources
in a secure, predictable, lower-latency fashion
will spell the difference between digital business
success and failure.’ This was in the report he
authored: ‘Colocation-Based Interconnection Will
Serve as the ‘Glue’ for Advanced Digital Business
Applications’6
.
Further, in this report he recommends the following
to enterprise IT decision makers,
• Design and build prospective digital business
applications paying particular attention to the
complexities of connecting many “sources and
sinks” (originators and consumers) of information
with the appropriate business logic, in a manner that
is low latency enough to prevent excessive delay.
• Deploy applications that can benefit using a
data centre interconnect fabric model offered in
a carrier-neutral facility.7
Different types of connectivity matter
In the face of increasing infrastructure complexity
and spiralling bandwidth demand, organisations
across different sectors are realising the pressures
they face cannot be solved by increasing capacity
alone. The multitude of different connectivity use
cases bring them as many requirements from price,
to resilience to latency. Meanwhile, enterprises
with flat or decreasing connectivity budgets need
to square the circle of connecting branch sites
together with flexible and futureproof solutions
that are able to cope with the spiralling bandwidth
demands.
To address these challenges, organisations
are turning to specialist connectivity types
and software-driven innovations, including
SDN (Software Defined Networking) and NFV
(Network Functions Virtualisation) to facilitate
the agile provisioning of the ultra-high bandwidth
requirements that now form the backbone of their
global operations.
The adoption of these intelligent connectivity
solutions, such as those offered by the SDN-
optimised Colt IQ Network, enable businesses to
create and modify connections and bandwidth in
near real-time via intuitive portals, avoiding legacy
provisioning processes and moving toward true
agility.
The Colt portfolio
Colt’s portfolio of network solutions enables
a customer to connect enterprise buildings to
enterprise buildings; enterprise buildings to data
centres; and data centres to data centres in order to
create a secure and resilient environment to store
and aggregate the data on which their companies
depend.
Data centre to data centre interconnect is leading
the charge in terms of traffic growth as enterprises
add more clouds to their roster, and content
providers and wholesalers look to aggregate
traffic closer to the end consumer. Connecting
data centres together can be done in several ways
and when the business needs to keep two sets of
data in two geographically diverse data centres
synchronised, then operating a dedicated network
makes sense.
A dedicated connection uses Wave Division
Multiplexing (WDM) to carry multiple waves along a
5
6. single fibre. This service allows the addition of extra
connections by simply inserting extra interface
cards into the equipment chassis. This means that
the service can be upgraded with zero downtime.
The benefits of buying a managed service over a
‘DIY’ solution such as the Dark Fibre approach are
largely to do with the expertise available within the
design and operations departments of Colt.
Designing, installing and operating a complex
multi-interface network that is carrying such
valuable data is no small task. If all goes well, the
network will be taken for granted. The day there
is a problem, sufficient resource with the right
experience has to be available 24 hours a day, seven
days a week.
Direct to the data centre, Colt’s Wave service
directly connects Europe and Asia’s top data centre
locations, delivering wavelengths where you need
them most. Many of our data centre locations
feature pre-provisioned DWDM equipment,
meaning we can provide extremely rapid service
turn-up and bandwidth upgrade potential within
days.
Dark Fibre
Another option available to customers is to
purchase Dark Fibre and either install a solution
themselves or pay a system integrator to design
and manage the installation. This can at first seem
a cheaper option but any problems with the design
or operation of the service could easily be wiped
out if the company loses substantial business due
to the failure of its IT systems. With the right level
of expertise, a Dark Fibre solution can hopefully
provide the right level of data security. It must be
said, however, that when it comes to the data on
which the company survival rests, hope is not the
best strategy.
Private Ethernet
Private Ethernet is a layer 2 point to point metro
area service with bandwidths ranging from 1Gbps
up to 10Gbps, delivered over both fibre and
equipment that is dedicated to a single customer
– this provides maximum security. In addition
customers can choose the fibre path that their
Private Ethernet service is routed over, giving
maximum flexibility.
Wave
Colt’s high bandwidth optical wavelength
services directly address the requirements of
enterprises, carriers, operators and OTT players
requiring connectivity between major sites
and data centres. The service provides both
metro and long-haul options at bandwidths of
1Gbps, 2Gbps, 2.5Gbps, 4Gbps, 8Gbps, 10Gbps,
40Gbps and 100Gbps.
As your global capacity requirements increase,
you need a connectivity partner who can
provide the flexibility, reliability and economic
efficiencies which will enable your business to
expand and grow.
A clear upgrade path to higher bandwidths is
essential – and sometimes services are needed
quickly, in order to respond to immediate
opportunities or to support changes to your IT
environment.
Colt’s Wave Service directly connects Europe
and Asia’s top data centre locations, delivering
wavelengths where you need them most.
Many of our data centre locations feature pre-
provisioned DWDM equipment, meaning we
can provide extremely rapid service turn-up and
bandwidth upgrade potential within days.
Colt understands you need the flexibility to
upgrade, change and reroute bandwidth as
your business matures. We offer a range of
commercial options, including lease and IRU
terms, to provide you with the flexibility to plan
your business.
Spectrum
A high-bandwidth long-haul solution, providing
Colt’s wholesale and major enterprise customers
with the scalability and economic benefits of
long-haul Dark Fibre – without the capital or
resources required to operate a long-haul private
fibre network.
Spectrum services remove the need for
additional fibre procurement or IRU renewal, and
simplifies the customer operational model by
enabling customers to leverage existing capex
investments in optical hardware, whilst benefiting
from Colt’s state-of-the art photonic layer.
6
7. SD WAN
For the enterprise it is evident that global network
interconnection complexity and bandwidth
demand globally are growing exponentially –
driven in large part by cloud adoption and the
huge hike in the transport of video and other high
bandwidth content. In the face of these challenges
enterprises are waking up to the realisation that
simply throwing additional bandwidth capacity
at the problem is no longer enough to maintain
competitive edge in today’s fast-paced, cloud-
centric globalised business landscape.
SD WAN allows enterprises to increase their agility
by supplementing their more expensive MPLS
connectivity with a secure tunnel running over a
commodity internet connection. This not only takes
the strain off the ‘premium’ network and frees it up
to carry critical traffic, it also means less important
end points can be served faster and cheaper by
internet connectivity instead of premium network
connectivity.
Conclusion
As global capacity requirements increase,
enterprises, wholesalers, content providers
and vertical specialists all need a connectivity
partner that can provide the flexibility, reliability
and economic efficiencies which will enable the
business to expand and grow. A clear upgrade path
to higher bandwidths is essential – and services are
increasingly needed at pace, in order to respond to
immediate opportunities or to support changes to
your IT environment. Colt offers both the technical
expertise and commercial flexibility to deliver
premium high bandwidth services – from a reliable,
longstanding partner you can trust.
1 https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-provider/
visual-networking-index-vni/complete-white-paper-c11-481360.html
2 https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/solutions/collateral/service-provider/
visual-networking-index-vni/complete-white-paper-c11-481360.html
3 http://www.capacitymedia.com/Article/3767227/Capacitys-Asia-Whole-
sale-Survey-Directory-2018 4 https://www.strategyand.pwc.com/media/
file/The-revival-of-fixed-infrastructure.pdf 5 https://www.equinix.co.uk/
interconnection-enables-the-digital-economy/ 6 and 7 Gartner, Coloca-
tion-Based Interconnection Will Serve as the ‘Glue’ for Advanced Digital
Busi-ness Applications’, Published July 2016, Refreshed August 2017.
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