Having discussed the evolution of metro networks and the technologies that underlie their functionality, we now turn our attention to the applications that are most commonly found within the metro environment. Some of them have been in existence for quite some time; others have emerged with the arrival of metro as a standalone region of the network and a support mechanism for the business environment it serves.

The most common applications on the metro scene are fundamentally based upon storage technologies. As competition has increased in all industries (not just telecom), the need to accurately deliver on customer requests for service has become far more critical than ever before. The law of primacy (whoever gets there first wins) has become a crucial component of business success. Of course, getting there first only counts if the service provider gets there first with accurate, correct, and appropriate solutions to a customer s business problem. The applications that have emerged most recently and that have garnered the bulk of the marketplace s attention include data mining, information and knowledge management, customer relationship management, enterprise resource planning, and the various storage solutions that make them possible within the metro domain. Each of these will be discussed in the pages that follow.