This explosive growth in network traffic is further found in forecasts made by many leading networking industry experts of the scaling of specific areas of infrastructure. Every aspect of these estimates of scaling of course represents requirements for network equipment to scale to provide the necessary bandwidth. And it is also the case that because traffic crosses many elements of the network in going from sender to receiver, the scaling of one element must be accompanied by the scaling of other elements or the user will not see a benefit. A key example of this is the major growth in both dark and lit fiber in backbone networks contrasted with the lack of capability to deliver the high bandwidth to users in metropolitan environments. At Raza Foundries, we use the term seams to refer to mismatches in capabilities of different areas of the infrastructure.
Every seam is an opportunity for new products to provide the necessary capabilities.
Mismatches in bandwidth capability are a very widespread type of seam. Of course, providing adequate seamless raw bandwidth is not the only issue in network infrastructure. The bandwidth needs to be useful in the ways in which commercial and consumer users desire. There is also the need to provide support for the many existing protocols that appear within the Internet infrastructure. Each of the legacy protocols has a customer base that wants continued support for a smooth transition path as the network evolves, while newer protocols offer the attraction of enhanced capabilities and services.