Hammerhead Develops PBT Service Gateway

Hammerhead System is developing a PBT (Provider Backbone Transport) Service Gateway software capability for its HSX 6000 Layer 2.5 Aggregation Switch that will enable service providers to interwork PBT deployments with their MPLS backbones and growing VPLS installed base.



Hammerhead's HSX 6000 is a Layer 2.5 Aggregation Switch that features MPLS Pseudowire technology and VPLS capabilities. It provides dense Ethernet aggregation, Pseudowire termination, legacy Frame Relay and ATM support, and Service Interworking. It features a "Layer 2.5" edge aggregation approach designed to integrate access services (wireline, broadband, broadband fixed wireless and 3G) that are typically based on Layer 2 connection-oriented technologies with new services that are based on Layer 3. Hammerhead already offers Service Agile Ports on the HSX 6000 that enable flexible software provisioning of any physical port for a variety of services and data rates.



Using its on-board network processors and the new software, Hammerhead's HSX 6000 will be able to transparently interwork PBT and MPLS using its Any-to-Any Service Interworking Engine.



The new PBT Service Gateway capabilities, which Hammerhead said were developed in direct response to specific customer demand, will enable service providers to introduce PBT in areas of their networks where previously it may not have been considered as an intended direction. Whereas many service providers currently perceive that they are facing an architectural choice of PBT or MPLS, the PBT Service Gateway would enable the coexistence of the two technologies.


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