Examining Progress in Interoperability between MPLS, MPLS-TP and PBB-TE Network Clouds Carsten Rossenhövel, Managing Director European Advanced Networking Test Center
EANTC Introduction Providing independent network quality assurance since 1991 EANTC Berlin, Germany Test and certification of network components for manufacturers Network design consultancy and proof of concept tests for service providers Request for Proposal (RFP) support and life cycle testing for large enterprises and government organizations
Agenda Overview: Latest EANTC Interop Event Gauging the state of the art Packet transport relevant interop test areas New Services E-Tree Transport MPLS, MPLS-TP, PBB-TE Global Interconnect MPLS-based Fault and performance management Ethernet OAM Clock synchronization packet-/network-based Outlook
EANTC Interop Event at MPLS and Ethernet World Congress, February 2009
Participating Vendors
Network Topology
State of the Art in Packet Transport Technologies Personal View Visibility IEEE1588 Performance Monitoring Y.1731 SyncE PBB-TE Ethernet OAM (IEEE 802.1ag) MPLS/VPLS MPLS-TP? E-NNI Better Ethernet Resiliency MPLS Inter-Provider Technology Progress Technology Trigger Peak of Expectations Trough of Disillusionment Slope of Enlightenment Plateau of Productivity European Advanced Networking Test Center Apr 2009 Hype Cycle model (five stages) Gartner 1995
Test Area: E-Tree Services Ethernet Tree - Point to Multipoint Ethernet service Uses: IPTV, multicast distribution,etc. MEF defines service, not technology Vendors were asked which mechanisms make sense VPLS (without full mesh) MPLS-TP N:1 stitching
Inter-Provider Peering Solutions State of the art: Carrier Ethernet E-NNI still in standardization simplified with each further MEF meeting Provider Bridging-based interconnections ( Q-in-Q ) are standard deployed solution today E-NNI added benefit will be mostly creation of a standard language Growing SP interest in advanced MPLS interconnections, improving service and reducing provisioning effort Multi-segment pseudowires End-to-end MPLS pseudowires Mutual understanding of level of trust required! QoS awareness required Service Level Agreements across service providers
Test Area: Inter-Carrier MPLS Interconnectivity Three standardized alternatives tested: Option A Treat opposite carrier like a customer Option B Build separate service segment between providers, stitch three segments together Option C Single, dynamic end-to-end service From A to C: Operational efficiency increases, privacy decreases Lab facilitated end-to-end testing
Test Area: MPLS Transport Aggregation Pre-standard MPLS-TP Tests New IETF work under joint IETF/ITU-T initiative. Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson testing early implementations: Updated label usage GACH/GAL Suggested OAM protocol (BFD) T-MPLS Tests Frozen standard. Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, MRV, UTStarcom tested: ITU-T based protection of T-MPLS Paths using Automatic Protection Switching (APS, adapted from SDH) and CV (OAM protocol)
Test Area: PBB-TE
Questionnaire at CEWC 2008 Responses Algeria Telecom Belgacom Brazil Telecom Broadband Infraco British Telecom Colt Telecom GTS Novera GVT Orange UK PT Prime Swisscom Telecom Italia Telecom New Zealand Turk Cell T-Com / T-Systems Telefonica Versatel Vodafone (28 in total)
Questionnaire CEWC 2008 Relevance of Interoperability Areas 1. Ethernet OAM 2. Ethernet Service Types (E-Line, E-LAN, E-Tree) + Performance Monitoring and Reporting 3. Metro Transport (MPLS, MPLS-TP, PBB-TE) 4. Carrier Ethernet Security 5. Access Networks 6. E-NNI / Global Interconnect
Connectivity Fault Monitoring (CFM) Tests (Carrier Ethernet World Congress 2008) 12 router/switch plus 2 analyzer vendors participated Outstanding level of support Implementations fully interoperable for the three basic services (CC, LT, LB) Added Remote Defect Indication tests
Y.1731 Performance Monitoring Tests Helps validate SLAs for internal QA and for customers Growing number of implementations (10 tested) Artificial loss, delay, delay variation inserted by impairment generators Generally, high degree of accuracy much improved since last test Lack of specification for calculating/displaying delay values leads to variation amongst vendors
State of the art and challenges of clock synchronization over Carrier Ethernet Packet based solutions: Multiple technologies (adaptive clocking, IEEE 1588v2) developed extensive lab testing activities going on Performance threat: Network delay and delay variation at the same order of magnitude as clock wander and jitter Control end-to-end packet network QoS - finally use differentiated quality for clock, voice, data Network synchronous solutions: Synchronous Ethernet support slowly growing Not influenced by network load conditions Hop-by-hop support required Combination of methods expected in the future, using transparent boundary clocks
Clock Synchronization Tests (Precision Time Protocol IEEE 1588-2008) Several implementations option support varies: Some vendors support multicast, some unicast transport of clock messages Two clock options: one-step and twostep Sync messages rate range support varied: 1-32, 32-128, 100-1000 per second Limited interoperability already achieved in our early tests
Synchronous Ethernet Tests First time successful public multivendor testing at this year s interop event Test system measured wander of sync messages Requirements for frequency synchronization quality met by all three implementations
Summary Interoperability testing helps to: Validate new protocols, create confidence Improve quality of individual implementations (Majority of SP networks are multi-vendor today) Outlook EANTC interop test at Carrier Ethernet World Congress (September 2009) will focus LTE backhaul, end-to-end clock sync, Advanced E-NNI, managed Ethernet services Individual performance & scalability proof of concept tests (vendor- and service provider-driven) upcoming
Thank you! Carsten Rossenhoevel EANTC AG, Berlin, Germany Phone: +49.30.318 05 95-0 E-mail: cross@eantc.de