Indian enterprises are fast discovering a new business edge in networking. An ever-increasing number of large enterprises and competitive small- and medium-sized companies are achieving new levels of productivity by networking their business-critical systems across both intracity and intercity offices and set-ups. Not only have they found it beneficial to conduct many internal corporate functions through the network in an intensely competitive world, they find it hard not to stay connected with business partners and key customers. Service provider networks, especially those of Internet service providers (ISPs) and carriers providing interoffice connectivity for enterprises, have also grown to meet the networking demands of such customers.

In such a scenario, the business itself gets dependent on the network infrastructure of maintaining its vital processes to the extent that network downtime can lead to lost efficiencies and dwindled profits. The service provider too pays a steep penalty when his network is unavailable. In a developing country like

India, where the bandwidth available is often paltry, the challenge is even greater. Costs due to downtime in a network include staff overtime, engaging consultants, and SLA penalties incurred because of an outage. In addition, a number of soft costs are related to network downtime. Business stability and predictability are the key concerns when the service provider signs SLAs with the customer. Like the telephone network today, the IP network (Internet) should also be trustworthy and predictable.

Therefore, while choosing a router—the most important networking devices in a wide area network—a 99.999 availability is not asking for much.