7 Ethernet
This chapter describes the prominent Ethernet features supported in the TJ1600 product family.
7.1 VLAN
VLAN switching is supported as per IEEE 802.1q and VLAN stacking (Q-in-Q) is supported as per IEEE 802.1ad. CSMA/CD Ethernet - Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Detection is supported as per IEEE 802.3 standards.
• 1024 Ethernet Virtual Connection (EVC) are supported on the node.
• 2048 Flow points are supported on the node
• ELINE EVC
• ELAN EVC
Note: Only two flow points can be present in an ELINE EVC.
VLAN + DSCP and VLAN + PRIO classification are not supported.
7.2.1 ELINE EVC
EPL service is a dedicated port based service, analogous to a TDM private line. An EPL service is configured as an ELINE service, which requires two interfaces to participate in the service. The interfaces participating in an EPL service should be configured as transparent ports. Link integrity is supported in the EPL service. No other services can be associated with the ports participating in the EPL service.
EVPL service
Flows contributing to an EVPL service are identified using the {port and CVID/SVID} fields in the incoming frame as the key. EVPL is configured as an ELINE service but the participating port need not be transparent. Ports participating in EVPL can be part of any service. Exception is if the port is transparent, that port cannot be part of any other service.
The differentiation stated above is only from an application perspective. From configuration perspective, EPL is just a degenerate case of more sophisticated EVPL.
7.2.2 ELAN EVC
EPLAN service
EPLAN service is configured similar to the EPL service, except that service type is ELAN. Any number of ports, which are part of service are configured in transparent mode.
ETREE service
ETREE service is emulated using the hub and spoke service construct of MPLS-TP. This service is created from NMS as it involves multiple nodes. ETREE service is considered as a special case of ELAN service. It is primarily intended to support multicast services like IPTV. In this service, all participating L2 end points are modeled either as a root or a leaf. Leaf to leaf communication can be configured or disabled by the user.
7.3 LAG
Link Aggregation Group (LAG) is used for protecting Ethernet links across link failures. Only static LAG is supported where two interfaces are part of the LAG and traffic is carried on one interface and the other is on standby to provide protection for the work interface.
7.4 MPLS-TP
Multi Protocol Label Switching - Transport Profile (MPLS-TP) is a new formulation of MPLS, being standardized by ITU-T and designed specifically for connection-oriented packet transport network based on well-known and widely deployed IP/MPLS technology and standards. The MPLS-TP meets all the requirements of transport networks but is packet switched in nature. The MPLS-TP supports following features:
• Management plane:
— Statically configure label switch path and pseudowire and manage through NMS
— OAM handling
• Data plane:
— Forwarding based on LSP/PW label
— Bi-directional path (LSP) for traffic and OAM
— OAM support through Associated channel (PW ACH and GE ACH). OAM supports bidirectional forwarding detection (BFD), pseudowire status messaging (PWSM), LSP-Ping, and LSP traceroute.
• Protection:
— MPLS-TP dual-homed pseudowire protection
— Tunnel protection
— Pseudowire protection
• Loop prevention: MPLS Core may use a full mesh of PWs so there may be possibility of loop. To prevent the loop split-horizon forwarding is used.
• Multisegment pseudowire: Multi segment pseudowire allows reduction in tunnel count and efficient setup of the tunnel.
MPLS-TP is supported with the following limitations:
• Tagged MPLS is not supported.
• Same per-hop behavior (Cos-EXP to EXP-Cos profile) must be used across the network.
7.5 OAM
OAM operation is supported by Connectivity Fault Management (CFM) and supported in accordance with IEEE 802.1ag.
CFM monitors Ethernet links and services to locate and debug any faults in the network or service. CFM comprises of the Continuity Check Message (CCM) protocol ensuring MEP based fault detection. MEPs can be configured on tunnel or pseudowire level.
7.6 QoS
Providing Quality of Service (QoS) is also one of the 5 tenets of Carrier Ethernet technologies. Standard based services, Scalability, Reliability, QOS, and Service Management.
Supports QoS for the PTN technologies like MPLS-TP. Supports Ingress QoS and Egress QoS that are implemented in every Network Element (NE).
The following points apply to all the PTN technologies and differ only based on the encodings of color and CoS in the Packet headers.
The size of queues for CEF-5 card is 400MB.
7.6.1 Ingress QoS
UNI and Ethernet NNI functionalities supported are:
• Associating a class of service that is a QoS service level
• Traffic conditioning
MPLS-NNI functionalities supported are:
• Associating a class of service that is a QoS service level based on the packet headers.
• Inferring the color of a packet based on the packet headers.
7.6.2 Egress QoS
The egress QoS functionalities supported are:
• Queue admission based on the color and CoS of the packet arrived at based on the Ingress QoS step.
• Scheduling among the different CoS queues.
• Every egress port is assigned 8 CoS queues. Packets can be mapped to specific CoS queues dynamically using .1p (or DSCP) to CoSQ profile. By default, all packets are mapped to CoSQ-0. The queues can be configured as a Strict Priority or WFQ from scheduling perspective, using scheduler profiles. Every queue is assigned 6MB of memory/buffer depth. Port level shaper (single rate) with configurable burst size is supported.
7.6.3 Storm control
Storm control is supported through a flow-policer to block or discard the packets which would otherwise limit the traffic in the network. This is available only for ELAN service.
Following are the limitations in QOS:
• CoS-DSCP mapping profile attached on a flow point affects all the flow points on the same port.
• Priority tag is not supported for Q-in-Q.
7.7 LLDP
The Link Layer Discover Protocol (LLDP) is supported on Ethernet ports for discovery of neighboring devices. For enabling LLDP on individual ports, user needs to create LLDPInterfaceConfig object and configure BPDU tunneling for peering LLDP messages. Supported in accordance with 802.1ab. Supports Packet Trunk object creation for auto-discovery of the topology in the NMS.
7.8 BPDU Tunneling
The Bridge Protocol Data Unit (BPDU) configuration is service level peering, tunneling and discarding of BPDU packets. Based on the service type, BPDU configuration is profiled into following four types:
• Peer- LACP & LLDP; Discard- remaining BPDUs
• Tunnel- all type of BPDUs
• Peer- LACP & LLDP; Tunnel- STP & GARP (01:80:C2:00:00:2x range); Discards- remaining BPDUs
• Peer- LACP, LLDP and STP; Tunnel- GARP; Discards- remaining BPDUs
NOTE: BPDU is supported in the range of 01:80:C2:00:00:00 to 01:80:C2:00:00:2F.
The port mirroring is commonly used for network appliances that require monitoring of the network traffic, such as an intrusion-detection system. The Egress and Ingress port mirroring are supported.
The port mirroring enables data plane monitoring functionality which allows the user to send an entire traffic stream for testing. Port mirroring sends a copy of packets of a port’s traffic stream, called mirrored port, into an analyzer port. The port mirroring is used for network monitoring. It can be used for intrusion detection, security breaches, and protocol analysis.
There is no limitation on the number of mirroring sources and more than a single source can be mapped to a single analyzer destination.