IP Infusion at Isocore iPOP 2007

Overview

In the spring of 2007, IP Infusion participated in the Isocore iPOP (IP + Optical Network) 2007 Interoperability testing. In May of 2007, Isocore announced the successful completion of the testing and the companies who participated. To read Isocore’s entire announcement, please use this link: www.isocore.com/Isocore_LECT_S07-PR.pdf.

The test bed for iPOP 2007 was qualified in one week of rigorous interoperability testing that was conducted at Isocore’s Internetworking Laboratory in Reston, Virginia. Representatives from eight companies gathered and proved interoperability of cutting-edge technologies and services using MPLS-based routing and switching equipment. The iPOP 2007 demonstration clearly showcased the capability of today’s hybrid optical networks to support Transport Protocol Specific (TPS) delivery along with video on demand (VoD) services.

IP Infusion Participants
Five senior software engineers and two members of IP Infusion’s senior staff were involved in the testing activities. Two of the engineers were in Virginia for the entire testing event.

Isocore Testing Categories
Major testing categories were:

• Metro/Carrier Ethernet Service delivery across IP/MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) Transport Networks
• Interoperation  of Virtual Private LAN Services (VPLS) and Ethernet Bridging
• Multi-service Internetworking
  • CESoPSN and SAToP
• IPv6 Transition Mechanisms
  • 6to4, 6VPE, and 6PE models
  • Comprehensive IPv6 routing
• Operation, Administration and Management (OAM)
  • Virtual Circuit Connection Verification (VCCV)
  • Traceroute
  • Ethernet OAM
• VCCV Message Encapsulation
• Ping for Label Switch Path (LSP), Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) and MPLS
• IPTV Deployment and Triple-Play Services
• Inter-Provider Layer 2/Layer 3 VPN Internetworking Models
• Multi-hop and Multi-segment Pseudowires
• Resiliency, Traffic Engineering (TE) and High Availability (HA)
• Multicast: PIM-SM, PIM-SSM, Bootstrap Router (BSR) functionality
  • Multicast Source Discovery Protocol (MSDP) for Inter-Domain Multicasting VCCV Message Encapsulation
• Target Forwarding Equivalence Class (FEC) stack sub-value: 1, 3, 5, 8, 9, 10, 12
• Echo Request and Reply
• Generalized MPLS (GMPLS) Control Plane Failure Recovery with Graceful Restart for 10G over SONET LSPs
• MPLS to GMPLS Migration Scenarios:
  • Label Distribution Protocol (LDP) over Resource Reservation Protocol-Traffic Engineering (RSVP-TE)
  • RSVP-TE packet over GMPLS LSPs with GMPLS-UNI (User-to-Network Interface)
• Ethernet over SONET at the Transport Layer
• Dynamic Redundancy Load Management Program (LMP)

Test Bed Topology
The diagram details the test bed used during testing. The two blue router symbols at the upper left and right of the diagram represent the two IP Infusion devices in the network. One machine was a Linux PC, and the second machine was a Broadcom EzRider with an IP Infusion protocol stack.

IP Infusion in the Isocore Test Bed Topology

• BGP/MPLS L3 VPNs for IPv4
• VPLS
• MPLS
• Metro Ethernet E-Line, also known as Virtual Leased Line and Point-to-Point
• Metro Ethernet E-LAN, also known as Virtual Private LAN Services, Transparent LAN Services, and Multipoint-to-Multipoint

Conclusions
IP Infusion gained many insights into where we need to go next with respect to product development, testing and implementation to allow us to remain the premier provider of carrier-class Internet routing and switching software. Important opportunities for IP Infusion exist in the areas of

• IPv6
• 6PE (IPv6 over MPLS)
• Layer 2 and Layer 3 VPNs
• Provider Backbone Bridge (PBB)
• Provider Backbone Transport (PBT)
• E-Local Management Interfaces
• Bidirectional Forwarding Detection (BFD)