Critical Requirements of Carrier Ethernet vs. Enterprise Ethernet Webinar Series September 2008

Carrier Ethernet Silicon Battleground Enterprise Ethernet Silicon Market Mainstream Carrier Ethernet Silicon Market Network Scalability OAM & QoS Statistics Circuits Carrier Standards Price Mass Market Simplicity Port Density Basic Standards Hardware Driven Service Driven Early FEATURES Volume ASSP Volume ASSP Very Different Features Very Different Business Models uP/FPGA’s NPU’s Replaced in Volume Markets

Lets dive into the differences … Feature/Function Enterprise Ethernet Silicon (Typical) Carrier Ethernet Silicon Network Scalability 16K MAC Addresses 4K VLANs (per switch) 128K MAC Addresses >80K VLANS (per switch) >1 Million Service Instances 16K Pseudowires OAM Support None (or in software which is slow …) 802.1ag (CFM) >1000 services @ 3.3ms 802.3ah (EFM) ITU Y.1731 (MPLS) QoS Minimal CIR & EIR Profiles Packet “Re-coloring” Protection & Statistics <25K counters typical Failover in seconds 250K counters/statistics <50ms failover rate Carrier Standards Compliance PB (802.1ad) (Q-in-Q) PBB (802.1ah) (Mac-in-Mac) PBB-TE (802.Qay) VPLS (RFC4762)

Debates Shaping the Market Carrier Ethernet Switching Challenges

OAM Complexity High for CE Switches Major challenge is scaling for two critical functions CCM message generation/reception is processing intensive Performance monitoring <intensive but accuracy for loss measurement is critical Many systems today struggle to meet 3.3ms CCM frequency for >~100 services Accurate performance monitoring requires large # of statistics counters Hardware assist is mandatory for >1000 CCM’s @ 3.3ms rate Accurate PM

Major challenge is scaling for two critical functions

CCM message generation/reception is processing intensive

Performance monitoring <intensive but accuracy for loss measurement is critical

Many systems today struggle to meet 3.3ms CCM frequency for >~100 services

Accurate performance monitoring requires large # of statistics counters

Hardware assist is mandatory for

>1000 CCM’s @ 3.3ms rate

Accurate PM

Why QoS & Buffering Matter Function of TM is to classify, police, and avoid congestion for SLA enforcement Many CE switches in market today are oversubscribed and have very limited TM Proper TM & packet buffering is critical to handle various traffic types to ensure QoS <100us of congestion will cause some switches to drop packets .. Proper traffic management ensures high priority (voice) is dropped last True carrier class switches should allow for 1000x more congestion than enterprise

Function of TM is to classify, police, and avoid congestion for SLA enforcement

Many CE switches in market today are oversubscribed and have very limited TM

Proper TM & packet buffering is critical to handle various traffic types to ensure QoS

<100us of congestion will cause some switches to drop packets ..

Proper traffic management ensures high priority (voice) is dropped last

True carrier class switches should allow for 1000x more congestion than enterprise

Lightstorm Architecture Purpose built for Carrier Market Developed closely with leading carriers, TEM architects, and standards leadership Scalable hardware and software roadmap over several generations No complex NPU programming

Purpose built for Carrier Market

Developed closely with leading carriers, TEM architects, and standards leadership

Scalable hardware and software roadmap over several generations

No complex NPU programming

More information … Visit – www.lightstormnetworks.com