EANTC Tests Carrier Ethernet Interoperability Amongst 24 Vendors

The European Advanced Networking Test Center (EANTC) is hosting 24 vendors to showcase the results of its latest interoperability test at this week's Carrier Ethernet World Congress 2009. This year, the showcase focused on three top issues: Mobile Backhaul, Managed Ethernet Services, and Global Interconnect.


During the two-week hot staging in the beginning of September, 60 engineers from the participating vendors and EANTC tested the network.


EANTC described the results as reassuring, noting that vendors have significantly invested in product and interoperability in recent years. The tests showed that Ethernet technology has successfully begun to extend to such areas as ENNI and LTE backhaul as well as the wireless media, while integrating deployments such as advanced end-to-end, multi-vendor fault management. At the same time, the technology has further matured, for example with regards to IEEE1588:2008 packet-based clock synchronization and Synchronous Ethernet interoperability. Service provider transport technologies for Carrier Ethernet services, including MPLS, PBB-TE and pre-standard MPLS-TP, were also successfully tested.


Ethernet OAM tests were included to cover an extensive set of tests for management solutions for both Link and Service OAM, primarily resulting in configurational issues to be settled. "Global Interconnect", the latest MEF project, is a topic that is just around the corner but already high on the industry's agenda. The future belongs to scalable and resilient interconnects, successfully tested this time with MPLS and Ethernet.


Carsten Rossenhövel, Managing Director of EANTC AG, sums up the importance of the tests: "As Carrier Ethernet technology matures, new challenges arise resulting from the need to integrate new markets and fields. We are very pleased to see that the vendors have fully used the opportunity that the showcase offers to address these issues and essentially move the technology ahead."


The following vendors are participating in the event: Agilent Technologies, Albis Technologies, Alcatel-Lucent, Calnex Solutions, Ceragon Networks, Ciena, Cisco Systems, ECI Telecom, Ericsson, Ethos Networks, Harris Stratex Networks, Huawei Technologies, Ixia, JDSU, MRV Communication, NEC Corporation, Nokia Siemens Networks, RAD Data Communications, SIAE MICROELETTRONICA, Siklu Wireless Communications, Spirent Communications, Symmetricom, Tejas Networks, Telco Systems - a BATM Company.
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