NXTcomm Welcomes ‘Carrier Ethernet 2.0’

Carrier Ethernet has taken hold both as a service and an umbrella networking technology. But that’s old news. What’s happening now is the move to “Carrier Ethernet 2.0,” as Greg Gum, vice president of marketing and business development at ANDA Networks recently put it during an interview with xchange.

Carrier Ethernet 2.0 adds the operations, administration and monitoring (OAM) features that enable service providers to deliver SLAs and better manage links, he said.

For ANDA, the move to help carriers embrace Carrier Ethernet 2.0 includes adding to its products support for standards like 802.1ag, 802.3ah and Y.1731, as well as some additions of its own in the OAM vein.

ANDA at NXTcomm in June debuted its EtherView 2.0 multivendor element management system (EMS). Gum said the product, which can address up to 10,000 nodes, is noteworthy in that it works with various other vendors’ gear. The solution employs Nakina Network’s OS software for multidomain management of telecom and data networks and is compliant with the TMF’s MTOSI, an XML-based interface into BSS/OSS systems.

Additionally, ANDA promoted its integration of the EtherReach 1000 Series Ethernet over Fiber Access platforms with Soapstone Networks Inc.’s PNC Research and Control framework, which now includes an ANDA adapter. Soapstone at the show demoed end-to-end service provisioning and restoration that combines its own and the ANDA solution, tying in with a BSS/OSS from AMDOCS Cramer.

Tellabs also at NXTcomm announced OAM&P enhancements based on IEEE 802.1ag and 802.3ah standards to its 8800 multiservice router (MSR) series.

"The new enhancements on the Tellabs 8800 series cure some of the biggest concerns about migrating to Carrier Ethernet," said Brian Gawick, vice president and general manager of broadband products for Tellabs. "These enhancements give our customers improved intelligence about their network services, the ability to more accurately manage and monitor their networks and a hearty helping of peace of mind."

The new features, which will be available in the third quarter of 2008, help service providers monitor the network's heartbeat across multiple management domains so they can take action before issues arise; interoperate with third-party products, so providers have intelligence about the services they deliver over more network elements; remotely conduct maintenance and manage links between provider and customer hardware; receive alerts if failures occur; bundle multiple links between routers into one large link; and remotely detect and block loops in the network.

An enhancement to the granular accounting capability of the Tellabs Data Collection Module (DCM) software provides the monitoring and reporting platform to support these requirements. DCM offers a comprehensive set of historical statistics and accounting detail on the physical and logical resources in the Tellabs 8800 MSR to confirm compliance with SLAs.

Carrier Ethernet demarcation device vendor Accedian Networks at NXTcomm also emphasized the need for better OAM tools for Carrier Ethernet. At the show, Accedian unveiled the EchoVault SLA EMS, which the company’s President and CEO Patrick Ostiguy said both enables moment-by-moment visibility into the network and solves the carrier problem of what to do with all the data demarcs generate. Working with the EchoVault SLA EMS, demarcation devices compress data and send one packet per minute to the EMS, which includes an Oracle database for storage.

“We’re the only [vendor] that allows service providers to see what’s happening every second,” said Ostiguy.

That means service providers can see things they wouldn’t otherwise be able to spot, such as microbursting, he said. As a result, he said, if a customer complains of lost traffic, the carrier can check whether that customer has bursted above their SLA ceiling and, if they have, provide the customer with that data. Of course, the carrier also could use this data as an opportunity to upsell the customer.

And in yet another move addressing OAM and SLAs, Hatteras Networks Inc. introduced its new EtherFLEX Operating System. The OS has three key components: SERVflex, which is a self-contained service delivery engine; SUREflex, which does SLA optimization; and FASTflex, which does automated provisioning and ties in with tools to enable service providers to monitor copper quality and manage end-to-end SLAs.

The SERVflex component includes a full Layer 2 switch and labeling for VLAN processing. The switch functionality means service providers don’t need to deploy extra switches that can, in some cases, result in latency. And the VLAN processing allows the Hatteras gear to support all types of MEF services. EtherFLEX Operating System release 6.1 became generally available May 30.

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