#eantc

ADVA (FSE: ADV) today announced that the European Advanced Networking Test Center (EANTC) has validated the interoperability of its unique carrier-grade network operating system (NOS) with routers and network management systems from a wide range of vendors. ADVA’s Ensemble Activator successfully demonstrated interoperability in a series of tests showing how disaggregated packet devices can significantly enhance the scale and functionality of networks. The software-based NOS, which turns bare-metal switches into powerful packet network devices, proved fully compatible with third-party switching and routing devices while supporting segment routing and MPLS Layer 3 services. What’s more, it showed ease of integration into third-party management systems through open interfaces for telemetry streaming and SDN control. Conducted at the EANTC’s facility in Berlin, the tests highlight the value of openness and show how Ensemble Activator can complement legacy packet networks with disaggregated packet devices …

ADVA Optical Networking announced today that the European Advanced Networking Test Center (EANTC) has verified the interoperability of key products in its demarcation and synchronization portfolio. The NETCONF/YANG and the OpenFlow interface of the ADVA FSP 150 Carrier Ethernet demarcation technology were proven in a multi-vendor interoperability showcase. ADVA Optical Networking was also successful in trials of its synchronization equipment. In various use cases, its OSA 5421 grandmaster clocks and OSA 5401 Syncplug™ were thoroughly tested. Their capability to deliver accurate frequency and phase information as well as synchronization assurance while operating with other vendors was verified. EANTC, the internationally recognized test center, unveiled the results of its vendor-neutral network interoperability trials at MPLS + SDN + NFV WORLD CONGRESS 2016 in Paris.

Huawei, a leading global information and communications technology solution provider recently had the European Advanced Networking Test Center (EANTC) perform an independent performance validation on their newly announced 1T line card for their NE5000E core router. EANTC has a long standing relationship with the Ixia Marketing Lab Program and knew that they could count on the Ixia Xcellon hardware family as well as the IxNetwork software to execute the tests required for this validation.

The NetEngine 5000E cluster router is a super core router for use in the Internet backbone, metro cores, Internet data centers, and Internet bearing networks. This level of device can fully support the requirements of the next generation backbone network – including quality of server and operation capabilities. This is important to service providers as the demands of their customers grows in both quantity and quality expectations.

The focus of these tests was on the performance of the new line cards. Two variants of the LPUI-1T were used: the 8x100GbE and the 24x40GbE load modules. Each was tested individually using the same methodology of using ports on one blade as ingress and ports on a second blade of the same type as egress. The modules’ line rate performance  was verified using RFC 2544 Throughput tests with frame sizes ranging from 128 – 9000, and also with an IMIX setup of IPv4 and IPv6 traffic.

Power efficiency measurements were also taken to show the impact of improvement on the new load modules. It is important that newer modules work at lower sustained power to reduce the cost of running the device.

Additionally the resiliency measurement for out of service time on an ISIS and on a eBGP failover configuration were measured. Lastly a forwarding information base (FIB) capacity test was executed multiple times, using a variety of different configuration options.

EANTC verified that the line card was performing to the values that Huawei has claimed. Test such as these are important to verify because service providers will want to see this Proof of Concept data in their typical Request for Proposal (RFP) documents as they look to evolve their networks.

For more information you can see the Huawei press release (http://pr.huawei.com/en/news/hw-329686-eantc.htm#.U1A62vldXTQ) and the report by EANTC (http://www.eantc.de/fileadmin/eantc/downloads/test_reports/2014/EANTC-Huawei-1TLPU-Marketing-Report_v1.4.pdf).

Additional Resources:

Huawei Press Release

EANTC Report

Ixia Xcellon Load Modules

As software defined networking gradually makes its way into data center networks, the end users’ expectation are that it must meet or exceed the benefits offered by traditional networks. So, how can OpenFlow be used to perform rate limiting and QoS traffic engineering?

The OpenFlow v1.3 standard has added Meter/Band functions to support various simple QoS operations such as rate-limiting, QoS remarking, or packet drop.  A meter measures the rate of packets assigned to it, and enables controlling the rate of those packets. When installing flows, a controller can attach meters directly to each flow entry as opposed to queues that are associated to ports.

A meter entry contains the following fields:

Meter Identifier - A 32 bit unsigned integer uniquely identifying the meter

Meter Band - Each meter has one band. The band specifies the rate at which the band applies and the way packets should be processed. If the current rate of packets exceeds the rate of the band, the packets are processed in the way specified by the band

A meter band contains the following fields:

Band Type - Defines how packets are processed. Packets that exceed the band rate are dropped or remarked

Rate - Defines the lowest rate at which the band can apply

How Ixia can help to test rate-limiting and QoS with SDN?

Ixia’s OpenFlow solution is widely used by many industry leading customers. With the IxNetwork 7.30EA release, we added several key advanced OpenFlow features including Meter/Band support.

Using OpenFlow controller emulation, a user can push millions of flows with various Match/Actions, can associate Meter/Band with each flow entrie,s and ensure that the OF switch can successfully install all flows correctly with right QoS policy applied by Meter. Then it generates data plane traffic based on each matching endpoint to ensure the switch is strictly forwarding traffic based on configured meter rate.

The expectation is that when the Meter/Band type is configured as Drop, the OF switch should start dropping the packets if it exceeds the configured rate. If the Meter/Band type is configured as DSCP Remark, the switch should start remarking packets that are exceeding specified rate.

Here’s the snippet from IxNetwork GUI showing meter/band features:

Supports multiple meter bands per Meter_ID

Rate (kb/sec), Rate (packets/sec), Burst Size, and Collect statistics flag support

Drop, DSCP Remark, and Experimenter Band Type

Allows user to dynamically Add/Modify or Delete Meter

This was one of the key test cases at EANTC’s hot staging event held at their lab in Berlin in February, 2014, and this solution was publicly showcased live at the MPLS/SDN World Congress event in Paris, March 2014.

For more information about this event, please take a look at following white paper published by EANTC:

http://www.eantc.de/fileadmin/eantc/downloads/events/2011-2015/MPLSEWC2014/EANTC-MPLSSDN2014-WhitePaper-online.pdf

As always, feel free to drop in your comment, questions or feedback!

Additional Resources:

Ixia SDN solution

EANTC White Paper

イクシア、EANTCが実施した初の総合的なデータセンタークラウド検証を支援

（PR TIMES） - リリース発行企業：イクシアコミュニケーションズ株式会社

2012年2月9日

米国時間2012年2月2日発表　- 統合IPおよびワイヤレスネットワークテストソリューションのグローバルプロバイダであるイクシア（本社：米カリフォルニア州カラバサス、NASDAQ:XXIA）は本日、EANTC（European Advanced Networking Test Center：欧州高度ネットワーキングテストセンター）とシスコが合同で実施した初のクラウドインフラストラクチャの公開テストに参加したことを発表しました。EANTCが中立的な立場で行った今回のテストでは、アプリケーション配信からコアスイッチングにまで至る次世代クラウド・データセンターを実現するのに必要な総合的なエンドツーエンド機能を提供する、シスコの専門技術が紹介されました。このテストでは、いくつもの物理および仮想テストソリューションを組み合わせて、複雑なクラウドネットワークの特性を完全に特徴付けるイクシア独自の能力が示されました。