The MPLS Forum and EANTC last month completed a multi-vendor Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) virtual private network (VPN) scalability and resiliency interoperability test at the MPLS World Congress in Paris.
Thirteen network equipment vendors participated in week-long interoperability program that comprehensively tested scalability. The tests also verified MPLS Fast Reroute techniques, showing the quality of typical services on an MPLS network.
One of the more significant services demonstrated was TDM over IP over MPLS — which requires SONET/SDH-grade carrier class recovery characteristics.
"The scalability achieved during MPLS VPN testing was representative of real network deployments, while using edge devices from different manufacturers," said Ananda Sen Gupta, Chair of the Interoperability Committee, MPLS Forum, and Business Development Manager, Asia-Pacific, Agilent Technologies.
"The RSVP-TE Fast Reroute testing covered both of the two techniques being discussed in the Internet Engineering Task Force draft on the topic, taking one more step towards assuring resiliency of MPLS networks.
"In this way, this event was a major step forward in establishing the fact that MPLS is right for service provider deployments today. It can support new revenue generating services as well as legacy services in a scalable fashion, and with the required service quality guarantees."
Participating vendors were Agilent Technologies, Alcatel, Avici Systems, Cisco Systems, Data Connection, IXIA, NetPlane, Nortel Networks, Quallaby, RAD Data Communications, Redback Networks, Riverstone Networks and Spirent Communications.
The MPLS Forum is an industry-wide association of leading networking and telecommunications companies driving the successful deployment of multi-vendor MPLS networks and associated applications. The Forum achieves through interoperability initiatives, implementation agreements, and educational programs.
More information is available at www.mplsforum.org