Media Coverage

Meriton Networks: Blazing The Carrier Ethernet Transport Trail

By Sean Buckley, Telecommunications Magazine

Ethernet shares a long-established legacy in both the enterprise and service provider network. In the enterprise, Ethernet is the networking protocol of choice to carry data and voice, and it continues to prove itself as a sound carrier class service

At the same time, a parallel trend is taking place to utilize Ethernet in the transport domain. Certainly, there’s no shortage of approaches for Ethernet transport as IP over WDM (Intelligent Packet over Optical Transport) and Carrier Ethernet Overlay (intelligent Ethernet over optical transport) have made progress in the market.

Meriton Networks, however, argues the better approach is CET (Carrier Ethernet Transport). As an architectural approach to build an Ethernet-Optical transport infrastructure, Meriton’s CET vision integrates Ethernet Gateway/Tunnels e.g. PBT (provider backbone transport) and PBB-TE (provider backbone bridging-traffic engineering) with intelligent WDM (wavelength and sub-wavelength switching).

PBB-TE, an emerging IEEE standard that incorporates PBT, can bring control to data paths within a large carrier network, enabling QoS and the ability to set aside specific paths for specific traffic types.

PBT offers a set of enhancements that bring the connection-oriented characteristics and deterministic behavior that carriers have grown accustomed to in legacy technologies such as SONET/SDH to Ethernet. PBT achieves this by disabling the concept of flooding/broadcasting and spanning tree protocol, which enables it to act like a traditional carrier transport technology.

What should make service providers smile about Meriton Networks’ CET strategy is that it does not require a forklift upgrade. Through the addition of enhancements to its existing flagship 7200 OSP platforms, service providers can take advantage of the benefits of CET in an evolutionary path.

Meriton will offer its CET capabilities via a two-pronged product evolution.

First, Meriton will add Ethernet wavelength and Sub-Wavelength switching to its existing 7200 OSP platform—all of which can be done on an any port to any port basis. By doing so, carriers can support high-density GigE networking within the metro via sub-wavelength switching and grooming of nine GigE streams onto a 10 Gbps wavelength. Staying true to an evolutionary path, the OSP incorporates GFP (Generic Framing Protocol) to carry Ethernet over SONET and the ability to integrate into existing OSS/OAM systems. What’s more, by switching a GigE path within the optical transport layer and maintaining the path throughout the network with an SLA makes it a sound wholesale interconnect service play.

Secondly, through a joint collaboration with TPACK, a provider of carrier Ethernet technologies will build an optional IEG (Intelligent Ethernet Gateway) element for the 7200 OSP.

Initially supporting the IEEE’s PBB-TE standard via an optional component for Carrier Ethernet Tunnel Switching and aggregation for local traffic handoff, the new IEG will also offer a T-MPLS variant.

Even though the standards around PBB-TE and PBT are still evolving, BT (21CN) has been a major advocate of the technology and Bell Canada and Verizon are eyeing it closely.

"What we're seeing with CET is that as carriers build out their incumbent territory transport architecture, they can take that Ethernet tunneling technology and embed it into the optical domain. This clearly articulates how an incumbent service provider can now offer a truly scalable transport architecture with clear lines of delineation between service and transport," said Ken Davison, VP of marketing and business development for Meriton Networks. "We have gone from the hype of building an NGN to the reality of deployment, and now we're starting to see from the vendor community and standards bodies the ability to build an NGN transport architecture that can support these services as opposed to laying the services on an assumed transport architecture."

Overall, the claim Meriton is making with this product evolution is in a word: simplicity. Through CET, Meriton claims carriers can reduce GigE port consumption and reduce the need for a separate Layer 2 aggregation platform between the optical and packet layers. The promise is that by keeping the switching in the optical domain, carriers can achieve deterministic QoS, low-latency jitter approach for switching carrier Ethernet traffic.

Michael Howard, Principal Analyst for Infonetics Research believes that over time, service providers make their respective next-generation migration, they will want a transport layer is Ethernet fused with WDM. "Meriton is at the center of the Carrier Ethernet Transport concept, and are headed in the right direction," said Howard "They are one of the first optical vendors to talk about PBT in an optical platform."