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Communication, in its various forms, has been a subject of universal fascination for the human kind since, one can say, forever. With its evolution from lighting flashes to denominate war victory, to the 21st century's blazing bandwidth Internet facility, all has been made possible only because of man's determination at conceiving the impossible. Internet in today's world, is a prodigal child of man's ability to achieve and one of its major enterprise communication manifestations is virtual private network (VPN) that acts as a crucial enterprise communications link.

VPNs are present in various distinctions but the most adopted of them is IP VPN. Experts are of the opinion that the cost, complexity and tedious nature of legacy the wide area networking (WAN) technology has restricted companies from broad basing their networks to include remote sites, people on the go, and to integrate suppliers, distributors, and dealers. Legacy WAN prohibited pervasive communication access mainly because to extend its reach, one needs to use costly technologies like asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), frame relay, and leased lines for private networks. These accumulated complication further became the point of birth of IP VPN.

Evolution of IP VPN
Companies like Sify believe that if we compare WAN options across private lines, ATMs, frame relays with IP VPNs, we see that while private networks are secure, they are also far more complex, cumbersome to set up and manage, costly to maintain, inflexible and non-scalable; and also private networks, by design, are limited. A private line links only two sites of a single customer in a point-to-point fashion, they deliver a secure but expensive and rigid solution. There is no possible mode to connect a third site or have all sites interconnected in an any-to-any fashion without requiring each site to maintain leased line connections to each of the other sites.

In contrast, IP-based networks are more efficient as they are based on the mesh network topology, where traffic flows in multiple patterns. Moreover, IP-based networks do not require permanent virtual circuits (PVCs), as in the case of legacy networks like frame relay or ATMs. Clearly, IP VPNs give freedom and flexibility to scale a business quickly, easily, and cost-effectively, with rapid growth and ubiquitous nature of Internet as its key. Sudhir Narang, managing director, BT India, says, “IP VPN is an integral part of the adoption of the IP technology that we are witnessing the world over in converging voice, video and data networks. IP VPN has attained a near de facto status for enterprises to connect with their intra and inter ecosystems. IP VPN enables network security and resiliency of networks. It also enables scalability and seamless integrations of various technology platforms.”

The growth in requirement of singular, connected applications has led to the growing popularity of IP VPNs. According to Frost & Sullivan, the VPN market is expected to reach Rs 3, 343 crore in 2013. However, experts feel this figure will be surpassed quite soon on account of opportunities like dealer connectivity, rural network initiatives, etc. Deepinder Bedi, director, International Marketing, Tulip IT Services, says, “IP VPNs primarily are based on the foundations of availability, security, scalability and flexibility. The ability to securely connect multiple locations at varied bandwidths, support a large number of locations across various industry verticals.”

Market Dynamics
In the last couple of years, the IP VPN market is headed the multi protocol label-switching (MPLS) route. MPLS based IP VPNs by retaining the pervasive reach of IP networks, at the same time, offer more network stability in terms of scalability and security. Reflecting on this PJ Nath, executive president, Sify Technologies, says, “MPLS is emerging as the fastest growing WAN technology which is being widely used by leading carriers globally. MPLS-based IP VPNs provide the performance and privacy of legacy WAN technologies like frame relay, combined with the flexibility and cost advantages of packet-based IP networks, like the Internet.”

Vendors believe that the key market drivers for IP VPNs are services like application hosting, e-commerce and other collaborative applications that are propelling the growth of IP VPN services. “Convergence of voice, video, and data applications have also fuelled the need for higher bandwidth within enterprise networks. IP VPNs will play a larger part of the network landscape with the growing adoption of MPLS-based IP VPN networks by multiple verticals like banking, BPO, healthcare, retail and FMCG”, says PJ Nath, executive president, Sify Technologies.

MPLS technology is an integration of Layer 2 (virtual leased line solutions with flexible bandwidth configurations) and Layer 3 (fully managed hub-and-spoke and full-mesh VPN for secure and flexible any-to-any connectivity). Moreover, MPLS offers enterprises a diverse range of services, including security, quality of service (QoS) and cross-location connectivity.

With the advent of MPLS-based IP VPNs, the data service market in India is experiencing a surge in demand. Since 2002, entry of ISPs and private fixed line operators has addressed the bandwidth requirements to a large extent. Since a VPN varies significantly across organizations, it is defined by its organization's need to connect across locations and run applications that require high bandwidth capacity used in business processes. According to industry experts, the current VPN user segment is primarily composed of large enterprises.

Reflecting on this, Deepinder Bedi says, “As per RBI guidelines for online banking and e-commerce-based services, banks and financial institutions must avoid any direct connection between the Internet and their core system. The best option available to banks is to place core network on IP VPN for enhanced security features.” Meanwhile, growth of IP/MPLS VPN is also expected to be driven by the small and medium enterprises (SME) in the days ahead.

In tune with market demands, vendors are also offering focused IP VPN-based services. For instance, Tulip IT Services offers IP-based infrastructural solutions to its customers. The company says that it has a market share of 28% in the MPLS VPN market. Tulip has been the front-runner in provisioning and managing multi-location wide area networks for various industry verticals.

Meanwhile, Sify Technologies offers a range of VPN connectivity services on the MPLS backbone. It has put in place state of the art infrastructure, and has partnered with multiple global service providers in different geographies of the world to establish a well-managed global MPLS network that provides end-to-end managed network connectivity across the globe.

Competing with Indian players, companies like BT are also making their presence felt in the enterprise connectivity space. The company has put in place its 21CN-its next generation network-an advanced communications network for the future. This creation of a global IP-based voice platform will see BT's current legacy TDM network replaced by an MPLS-based network across many countries worldwide. A significant portion of this is planned to be invested in India.

Emerging Trends
With every vertical having unique requirements, their connectivity requirements also differ. In tune with this, vendors are offering industry specific VPN products such as contact center solutions designed to cater to the needs of the BPO industry. Today vendors are enabling the VPN to take more applications that can run and their priorities can be adjusted.

Experts believe that some of the emerging services like application hosting, e-commerce and other collaborative applications would be the key market drivers, propelling the growth of IP VPN services. Convergence of voice, video, and data applications has also fuelled the need for higher bandwidth within enterprise networks. Given this, IP VPNs will play a larger part of the network landscape with the growing adoption of MPLS based IP VPN networks and its adoption by many verticals like banking, BPO, healthcare, retail and FMCG.

As Deepinder Bedi of Tulip IT Services sums it up, “IP VPNs empowers an enterprises' ability to connect to multiple locations, spread all across the country. It provides greater availability by means of meshed hybrid systems, and multiple last mile options including fiber and wireless. Moreover a single vendor can offer complete connectivity solutions including network integration, connectivity, and managed services.”

Up till now, VPNs have come a long way but the way forward is MPLS. From a benefits point of view, experts are of the opinion, that irrespective of the enabling secure access for employees in a branch office, or for remote sites, or for traveling salespersons, or for business partners; companies using IP VPNs benefit greatly by expanding their employees, and their ability to remain productive, no matter where they are located in the world. The inherent benefits of IP VPNs have made them the vital enterprise communication access link.

Shrikanth G
shrikanthg@cybermedia.co.in