Alcatel is rolling out a number of hardware and software enhancements to its Alcatel 7750 IP/MPLS edge routing platform, including a new hierarchical QoS model, greater scalability and support for VPLS, new traffic engineering capabilities, channelized DS3 and OC-12 interfaces, new CALEA capabilities, a new mid-range chassis, CWDM capabilities, and support for 1000BaseTX SFP.
The Alcatel 7750 Service Router, which is based on technology acquired from TiMetra Networks a year ago, is carrier-class routing platform currently deployed by over 19 service providers. Recent customer wins include Iberdrola (Spain) and Allstream (formerly AT&T Canada). Alcatel previously offered 3 different models, scaling from a single-slot 20 Gbps box to a 12-slot 400 Gbps chassis. The new model is a 7-slot unit with 200 Gbps of fabric/system capacity.
Alcatel's new hierarchical QoS model uses 3 levels of child/parent scheduling queues on the line cards, enabling lower priority traffic to burst to higher rates whenever higher priority traffic falls below a committed rate. Alcatel said this ATM-like capability was enabled by the flexibility its network processors, without requiring it to re-spin ASICs.
New software also enables the Alcatel 7750 to significantly scale the number of IP VPN connections that it can support -- it now delivers up to 3,000 VRFs for RFC2547bis services, and up to 2,000 BGP peers for Internet and IP VPNs. The Alcatel 7750 is also adding security features, including ACL filters and MD5 encryption for control plane security.
In addition, the new hardware capabilities include:
- 12-ports of channelized DS3/E3, for 512 channels per MDA
- 1-port Channelized OC-12, for 512 channels per MDA
- CWDM SFP interfaces for enabling Gigabit Ethernet point-to-point links over metro optical rings with a 70km reach.
- In May 2003, Alcatel agreed to pay approximately US$150 million in stock to acquire TiMetra, a start-up based in Mountain View, California. TiMetra developed an IP/MPLS edge router and was active in the IETF in the development of Virtual Private LAN Services (VPLS), which provides bridged, multi-point WAN connectivity. TiMetra's platform was built using its own fully programmable 10 Gbps Network Processor Array, which is flexible enough for service providers to implement custom service capabilities. The 10 Gbps Network Processor Array silicon has thousands of ingress and egress queues to enable line rate QoS, accounting/billing, provisioning and diagnostics -- all on a per-service basis for thousands of services per physical port. The 10 Gbps deep packet inspections would allow service providers to offer highly granular Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Integrated OA&M functionality lets providers verify, manage and troubleshoot IP/MPLS data services. A unique Service Mirroring capability can be used to troubleshoot services and capture traffic without having to overlay network analyzers or deploy technicians to remote POPs.
