"We're no longer dealing with just raw packets," Fabbi points out. Tomake Web-enabled applications work well, enterprises must begin toimplement application-layer capabilities in the network to allownetworks to make intelligent use of information in the packet headers.

Delivering content and application services will also mean scaling upnetworks. Scaling up in terms of sheer volume - bandwidth and servercapacity - is straightforward enough, but widespread Web enablementshould also mean scaling up complexity of network design.

For example, rather than simply adding undifferentiated servercapacity, it may now make sense to split content and applications intological chunks (e.g. finance, HR, operations) and assign a differentserver or cluster to each, or add regional servers rather than morecentral server capacity. Then with application-layer capabilitiesdeployed, it becomes possible to streamline routing.

It's still early days, though, for what Fabbi refers to as "intelligentnetwork overlay" technology. While the market for switching androuting equipment is close to $25 billion a year, the market forintelligent overlay technology is only about $500 million.

What About Vendor Viability?