Net demand forces Lan change

A report from US-based Forrester suggests that mushrooming demand for Internet and intranet access from desktops is forcing dramatic renovation of corporate LANs. More than two thirds of the fortune 1,000 companies interviewed expect that IP will comprise the majority of traffic on their LANs within two years. Analyst Blane Erwin said: "Routers are too complex, slow and expensive to satisfy users' huge demand for bandwidth. So switches are the rage with LAN managers, delivering a ton of cheap speed. But their low IQ makes switches ill-suited for the net's any-to-any traffic patterns, prioritising urgent content, and forwarding only authorised packets. What switched LANs need is a small dose of intelligence." Forrester are on 001 617 497 7090.