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Traffic control problems

Friday 26 September 2008, Day Four, Carrier Ethernet World Congress, Berlin

TRAFFIC CONTROL PROBLEM CAUSES NON-DETERMINISTIC PLANE MANAGEMENT
By Mark Lum

It’s the fourth and final day of CEWC, somewhat diminished in quantity of delegates, if not in quality, and your diarist arrives to find himself — and more importantly, Verizon Business — in hot water for yesterday’s apparently contentious diary.

In case any readers missed seeing that, and in order to cool the water, I will more clearly re-state Verizon’s bold comment as “There is no Carrier Ethernet access service standardisation”. A rather evident situation, it seems to me! And one that is being addressed by important developments such as the MEF’s E-NNI and wholesale access interconnect, Ofcom’s Ethernet ALA requirements, and numerous other related standards and carrier activities that delegates have heard about during the week. The big question: how much will carriers want to align the very services that they compete on? A difficult area, certainly, but the industry’s prognosis is positive and further progress should be made over the coming year.

Today’s focus is “Future Ethernet” and whilst the headline “MPLS versus PBT” technology war has subsided, there is plenty to keep the remaining delegates interested, including presentations from: Cisco, Ericsson, Huawei, Juniper, Nortel and closing with a panel debate on options for Ethernet control and management and a synchronisation masterclass from Semtech.

Alert delegates will have heard several speakers mention SyncE — Synchronous Ethernet — during the week and be aware that synchronisation is a key requirement for mobile, and other, applications. As technical editor for several timing/sync ETSI and ITU standards during the 1990’s, I can tell you this is rather an arcane subject, but one of critical importance for Carrier Ethernet and packet transport evolution. For experts only, perhaps?

Away from the bright spotlight of the opening days, we hear considered presentations helping to put the various Carrier Ethernet technologies into some perspective. Including a full acronymic spectrum encompassing GELS, T-MPLS, PBB-TE, BGP, MPLS-TE, IGP, CL-PS, VPWS, LDP, MPLS-TP, PLSB, CO-PS, PBB/MPLS, VPLS, and too many more to list.

MPLS-TP has received vocal support during CEWC as the way to simplify packet transport, and delegates learn now that 18 technical drafts have been identified to date, requiring development and agreement. Proponents tell us that they foresee a dynamic control plane, and also that carriers’ existing TDM-oriented management systems will not, in fact, be suitable. On the face of it, it seems that complexity is needed to deliver simplicity! Your diarist has been variously informed that MPLS-TP standardisation may take 9, 12, 18 months or even 2 years. Let’s see how the progress goes.

Well, that’s it for another year: there is more at CEWC than can possibly be written about in a few diary pages, but I hope you’ve enjoyed a few glimpses here. Thanks for reading! Meanwhile, I and other UK residents are hoping that the Heathrow air traffic control problems of yesterday have been resolved, and we will find our way home in a deterministic fashion. I’m sure there is some telecom analogy to be drawn, but I leave that as an exercise for the reader.

Carrier Ethernet World — complete with MEF technical briefings and EANTC equipment interop showcase — travels to Singapore this November for its Asia-Pacific debut edition. In conclusion from the MEF’s official congress, notable progress has been made in scaling Carrier Ethernet and the market looks set to continue its strong growth in the coming year. See you in Berlin again for Carrier Ethernet World Congress 2009.

Read more of the CEWC Daily Digest, Day Four >

Posted by Pauline Rigby on September 26, 2008 10:54 PM | Permalink