Position Paper

The lines are drawn: Nortel vs. Cisco

Clarity is emerging. Over the past several years, the convergence of telecommunications with IT technologies has too often left CIOs and IT decision-makers feeling reactive to what have been characterized as paradigm shifts in the industry. The amount of research energy required to make fundamental strategic decisions in an environment of mixed messages and competing technologies has placed an extraordinary burden on already stretched IT resources. Recently, however, the task of evaluating strategic partners and suppliers has become somewhat clearer. As enterprises compare and contrast their partnership options, four clear lines have been drawn between Nortel and Cisco. By highlighting key differences in the strategic direction between the two suppliers, IT strategists can now more readily evaluate which vendor is in the best position to help them align IT investments with their business strategies. Consider the contrasting approaches (Figure 1.) For enterprises, what is at stake are fundamental decisions whether to move down a path that aligns their investment with a single vendor, network-centric environment, or that leverages an open application ecosystem and network simplification. communications (IM, telephony, video and application sharing) and near-real-time communications (email, voicemail, short message services) into a single environment, whether at the employees desktop or when mobile on private and public networks. Native client integration with directories, email, calendaring, and other desktop applications simplifies life for both the user and IT. Unified Communications integration with desktop applications is the best way to meet the needs of your users.

Desktop integration
Whats on the line? Best fit into desktop environment and total cost of ownership: single client vs. multiple clients. Why is it important? Unified Communications is the unification of presence, real-time

Figure 1. Key differences in strategic direction Nortel vs. Cisco

Key strategic direction Desktop integration Nortel Truly integrated Unified Communications client approach via Microsoft and IBM partnerships Full support of SOA to best fit enterprise environments Cisco Cisco desktop client and Office Communicator client required in LCS environments Whats on the line End-user familiarity and fit into desktop environment with lowest TCO

Application architecture

Network-centric architecture based on SONA with required linkage to Cisco network

Vendor choice and flexibility in rolling out Unified Communications and communicationsenabled applications User satisfaction and avoidance of downtime costs User and customer quality of experience and network TCO

Real-time application support

Application-aware sub-second failover avoiding costly interruption Simplified Provider Backbone Transport (PBT) Ethernet-based architectures

Double-up investment for increased resiliency

Network architecture

Complex router-centric MPLS networks

How does Nortel lead? Nortel has chosen open architectures and industry-leading partnerships to deliver Unified Communications. Under the Nortel-Microsoft Innovative Communications Alliance (ICA), a single Unified Communications Office Communicator client, working into Live Communications Server, extends the user experience by providing design integration with desktop applications such as Office and Outlook, under Microsoft Active Directory. In January 2007, the CEOs of Nortel and Microsoft announced their multi-year joint solution roadmap and dozens of joint customers including Shell and BT. As part of the Nortel-IBM alliance, Nortel is committed to fit into the desktop environment of another global desktop leader. For example, Nortel recently demonstrated Sametime client integration with the Communication Server 1000 IP PBX, while launching the Nortel Multimedia Client for IBM Lotus Notes for its leading MCS 5100 multimedia solution. In addition to solutions for Microsoft and IBM

Integration, integration, integration. Our users were already used to the Microsoft email and messaging clients. Cisco has its own client software, and it would have been a big change. Cisco says you can integrate their solution with Microsoft, but it still would have been a headache for my IT guys. And like they say, 'Time is money.
Phillip Hagemann, chief information officer for Fred Weber, a midsize construction company based near St. Louis, CNET.com 01/17/07

desktops, Nortel will continue to offer its own rich Unified Communications client for PCs, laptops and BlackBerries in order to provide more choices and flexibility for our customers. Where is Cisco taking you? Cisco requires two clients (their own and Microsoft Office Communicator) for mobile users when interoperating with Live Communication Server, adding complexity and cost.

Why is it important? Unified Communications is becoming a software application that can be integrated into business applications to eliminate human delays. Enterprises have already invested billions of dollars in Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), an industry standard realized through solutions such as Microsofts .Net and IBMs Websphere. In this way, Microsoft's and IBMs ecosystems of millions of developers can be leveraged to deliver communications-enabled business processes and accelerate the transformation of the enterprise.

Application architecture
Whats on the line? Vendor choice and flexibility in rolling out IP Telephony and Unified Communications applications.

How does Nortel lead? Nortel has fully embraced SOA for employee and customer-facing environments as the best fit into our customers IT infrastructures. In fact, Nortel is already a leader in leveraging SOA in its SIP-enabled Contact Center solution. SOA will also add value to Nortels suite of secure networking solutions through dynamic identity, policy, context and security management. Finally, as Nortel's Communication Server 1000 IP-PBX becomes available on HP and IBM servers, Nortels SOA-based applications approach provides a truly open and flexible application architecture. Where is Cisco taking you? Ciscos proprietary network-centric SONA strategy, while confusing to many analysts who question Ciscos ability to execute, seems to put them on a collision course with IBM and Microsoft and, more importantly, with customers who have invested heavily in SOA frameworks. Equally limiting, Cisco only supports applications such as IP Telephony and Unified Communications when connected to Cisco data networks.

Frank Dzubeck, president of research firm Communications Network Architects Inc., says Cisco really doesnt understand how complex application performance and integration can be. Theres a different mindset to the way you attack a problem from an IT perspective versus a networking perspective, says Dzubeck. Gartners Mark Fabbi says hes disappointed with SONA and remains skeptical about whether Ciscos products actually incorporate the ability to provide application intelligence.
Network World Canada (September 29, 2006)

Real-time application support

Whats on the line? User satisfaction and avoidance of downtime costs. Why is it important? In addition to network intelligence to optimally support time-critical applications, the network must be able to recover from failures very quickly while minimizing packet loss. Sub-second recovery is required to make failures virtually transparent to users. How does Nortel lead? Nortel addresses these requirements through its comprehensive applicationaware networking portfolio. This

includes Power over Ethernet (PoE) switches that offer up to 11X improvement in price/performance compared to Cisco. In the head office and regional office environments, Nortels switch clustering technology leverages Multi-Link Trunking (an IEEE standard), to ensure that telephony and multimedia traffic are not impacted by link failures whether in the wiring closet, aggregation or core layers of the campus network. This architecture dynamically load balances traffic across multiple links and across multiple switches without manual intervention. When a link failure is detected, the traffic is automatically distributed in sub-second speeds across the remaining links. Very importantly, the network investment is used all the time. This proof point has been certified through independent Tolly Group testing.

Where is Cisco taking you? Ciscos campus architecture, based on manually configured per VLAN multiple rapid spanning trees, is complex to administer, does not provide dynamic load balancing, is more expensive, and most importantly does not deliver non-disruptive failure recovery for real-time traffic.

Network architecture
Whats on the line? User and customer quality of experience and network TCO. Why is it important? Enterprises need to simplify their operational environments in order to free up resources to leverage transformational opportunities. Up until recently, service providers have been deploying end-to-end MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching)

Nortels solution recovers from link and switch outages almost 10x faster using Nortels SMLT implementation than the RSTP implementation in the Cisco Catalysts solution. Audio/video traffic from Microsoft LCS ran uninterrupted over Nortel ERS during switch and link failures.
Tolly Groups Report 206106 on competitive performance evaluation of Nortel ERS 5000 vs. Cisco, Jan 2006; and Report 207171 on their evaluation of ERS for real-time traffic with LCS (February 2007)

networks as the foundation of their converged public networks, and promoting MPLS-based Virtual Private Network (VPN) services for enterprise customers. However, enterprise networks are at risk because service providers are being challenged by the complexity of planning, evolving, scaling and operating MPLS networks. How does Nortel lead? To address the inherent limitations of MPLS (namely complexity and cost), Nortel has led in the development of a new standard called Provider Backbone Transport (PBT) and developed a comprehensive PBT-based metropolitan networking portfolio. PBT is based on native Ethernet, does not depend on all of the processing-intensive protocols that MPLS uses for path set-up and resiliency, and is supported by management tools that surpass those of MPLS. One of the most compelling arguments for PBT is that between 40 to 80 percent capital cost savings can be derived for a metro network buildout using PBT, when compared with an MPLS-based solution.

We have been anticipating the widespread deployment of Ethernet in our 21CN architecture for a while but have been waiting for development to help make the technology viable for deployment in carrier-grade networks. The implementation of Ethernet also complements fully BTs well-established MPLS strategy within 21CN.
Matt Beal, director, core convergence, BT Wholesale

As a proof point, BT announced that Nortel is the lead solution provider for their 21st Century Network to address the complexity and cost associated with their MPLS network. Enterprises must be opinionated about their service providers MPLS environment and their intentions to implement PBT. Where is Cisco taking you? Cisco router-centric MPLS solutions are twice the cost of PBT solutions, and are overly complex, affecting the service providers ability to costeffectively meet enterprise needs. Bottom line Clear lines are now drawn, which distinguish fundamental differences in how Nortel and Cisco are approaching the current and future needs of enterprises.

Upon inspection of the two competing approaches towards desktop integration, application development, real-time application support and network architecture, it becomes evident that Cisco continues to advocate monolithic network-centric solutions, while Nortel embraces open software-centric solutions that deliver simplification, performance, agility and reliability. With competencies in enterprise and carrier, wired and wireless, applications and infrastructure, Nortel is uniquely positioned to deliver superior business value to enterprises of all sizes. Its your choice. Choose Business Made Simple. Choose Nortel.

Nortel is a recognized leader in delivering communications capabilities that enhance the human experience, ignite and power global commerce, and secure and protect the worlds most critical information. Serving both service provider and enterprise customers, Nortel delivers innovative technology solutions encompassing end-to-end broadband, Voice over IP, multimedia services and applications, and wireless broadband designed to help people solve the worlds greatest challenges. Nortel does business in more than 150 countries. For more information, visit Nortel on the Web at www.nortel.com. For more information, contact your Nortel representative, or call 1-800-4 NORTEL or 1-800-466-7835 from anywhere in North America. Nortel, the Nortel logo, Nortel Business Made Simple and the Globemark are trademarks of Nortel Networks. All other trademarks are the property of their owners. Copyright 2007 Nortel Networks. All rights reserved. Information in this document is subject to change without notice. Nortel assumes no responsibility for any errors that may appear in this document.
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In the United States: Nortel 35 Davis Drive Research Triangle Park, NC 27709 USA In Canada: Nortel 195 The West Mall Toronto, Ontario M9C 5K1 Canada In Caribbean and Latin America: Nortel 1500 Concorde Terrace Sunrise, FL 33323 USA In Europe: Nortel Maidenhead Office Park, Westacott Way Maidenhead Berkshire SL6 3QH UK In Asia: Nortel United Square 101 Thomson Road Singapore 307591 Phone: (65) 6287 2877

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