Alcatel-Lucent announced its commitment and support for MPLS-Transport Profile (MPLS-TP), building on the standardization efforts by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) and the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Enhancing MPLS with transport operational practices – including operation, administration and maintenance (OAM) and survivability – is expected to help carriers scale their transport networks while adding performance monitoring and multi-domain capabilities.
Alcatel-Lucent said it is committed to enabling seamless transformation of transport networks to converged MPLS-based packet transport. It has already added MPLS techniques to transport networks through its 1850 Transport Service Switch (TSS) portfolio — where the current version of MPLS-Transport, the ITU-T T-MPLS, is already implemented and under test with several service providers — and its 7450 Ethernet Service Switch (ESS) portfolio, which is deployed worldwide in carrier networks using MPLS pseudowires. This new effort brings these two related approaches together and delivers one unified set of MPLS-based packet transport standards.
“Alcatel-Lucent believes MPLS is the optimal technology to enable scalable Ethernet transport in carrier networks and has taken a leadership role in implementing MPLS-based packet transport” said Michel Rahier, President of Alcatel-Lucent’s carrier activities. “We are fully committed to MPLS and MPLS-TP and will continue to develop a full range of products based on common specifications, working closely with service providers and other vendors to ensure interoperability.”http://www.alcatel-lucent.com/ipnews
- In June, Alcatel-Lucent unveiled a network architecture that integrates Provider Backbone Bridging (PBB) and Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) technologies to increase the scale and reach of Carrier Ethernet VPN services. Whereas many vendors support PBB on Ethernet Switches and others support MPLS on routers, Alcatel-Lucent’s architecture combines the scalability benefits of PBB and the resiliency, traffic engineering and convergence benefits of VPLS and MPLS. The integrated PBB and VPLS solution is especially aimed at enhancing network and service scalability – both in terms of reach and MAC addressing.