Resilient Packet Rings

The way forward

Pranav Koushik
Surbhi Sinha
WHITE PAPER - December 2001
Wipro Technologies
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Table of Content
Introduction .....................................................................................................01
Limitations of current technologies ............................................................... ... 01
Packet Ring Technology .................................................................................. 02
Advantages of Packet Ring Technology.............................................................. 03
Packet Ring Applications.................................................................................. 03
Packet Ring standards .................................................................................... 04
Pre standard development ................................................................................ 04
Wipros expertise ............................................................................................ 05
Conclusion.......................................................................................................05
About the Authors.............................................................................................06
About Wipro ....................................................................................................08
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Resilient Packet Rings
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Introduction
Packet based networks are moving from the LAN to MAN. This increase in the data traffic
in the MAN has posed considerable challenges as the MAN was traditionally designed for
circuit switched voice services. Inefficiencies of carrying increasing amounts of data traffic
over voiceoptimized circuits make it difficult for service providers to provision new
services. Packet based transport technology, which is a natural fit for the IP protocol, is
considered by many as an alternative for scaling todays metro networks.
Gigabit Metro Ethernet is the first step in optimizing the MAN for packet-based transport.
Most of the Internet Protocol traffic today begins and ends its trip on the Internet as
Ethernet frames. Hence, carrying data in consistent format from start to finish reduces
complexity and costs.
This paper gives an overview of the emerging technology, information on the
standardization effort and gives a case study of work being done at Wipro. Engineers and
Managers involved in developing Network elements based on the Packet Ring technology
may use this paper.
1. Limitations of current technologies
SONET transport
Some of the disadvantages of SONET based transport are listed below.
Fixed Circuit based transport
Point-to-point circuits are provisioned for nodes on a SONET ring. Each circuit gets
a fixed amount of bandwidth. This fixed allocation of bandwidth limits the maximum
burst traffic data between nodes. Also, when the circuit is not being used that
bandwidth is wasted. N new point-to-point connections need to be created for each
added node.
Bandwidth utilisation
If a mesh topology network is to be designed, the ring bandwidth needs to be
divided by the number of provisioned circuits. Apart from this inefficient use of ring
bandwidth, provisioning these circuits is also difficult. Another reason for inefficient
utilisation of bandwidth in SONET rings is the bandwidth dedicated for protection
switching mechanism.
Multicast Traffic
Multicast traffic requires each node on a SONET ring to send a separate copy of the
packet to each destination. This results in multiple packets travelling around the
ring, wasting the bandwidth.
Expensive TDM interfaces on IP devices
To enable IP routers to sit on SONET rings, these devices have to be provided with
expensive SONET / SDH/POS interfaces.
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Ethernet transport
Some of the disadvantages of Ethernet are listed below.
Resiliency
Ethernet does not make good use of Ring topology for protection mechanisms.
Using link aggregation (802.1ad) link level protection can be provided. But this is
comparatively slow. (~500ms).
Bandwidth Sharing
Bandwidth sharing on a ring is not effective by using Ethernet. Ethernet switches
are equipped to provide link level fairness but this does not translate into a global
fairness policy.
2. Packet Ring Technology
With the disadvantages listed above in mind, we will examine the Packet Ring
technology and some of its advantages. As shown in Figure 1 below, the packet ring
technology is focussed on creating only a new Media Access Control (MAC)
addressing scheme for ring-based networks. The advantage of this approach is that
Physical Layer is left open. This makes Packet ring technology compatible with
SONET, Ethernet, DWDM and any new physical layer standards. Thus, Packet Rings
can operate over existing SONET rings, optimising them for better data services
without the need to abandon SONET equipment or voice traffic. In case where dark
fiber is available, a packet ring can operate without the need to purchase expensive
layer 1 equipment.
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Figure 1: Layers of Packet Ring Technology
.................................................................................................................
Network Layer
Protocols
(lP, MPLS, Others)
MAC Layer
802.17 Packet Ring
technology
Physical Layer
Transmission media
(SONET, Ethernet,
DWDM, Others)
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The packet ring technology standard is bound in scope to the MAC layer. The functions
that will be addressed by this technology are
n MAC addressing
n Packet forwarding
n Topology discovery
n Protection mechanism
n Global bandwidth fairness algorithm
3. Advantages of Packet Ring Technology
Bandwidth efficient for packets
The bandwidth efficiency of the ring is increased by statistical multiplexing techniques.
Dynamic bandwidth sharing
Due to the dynamic nature of bandwidth allocation, no bandwidth is wasted because
of pre-allocation as it happens on SONET rings. Spatial reuse of bandwidth between
nodes is possible.
Simple topology discovery mechanism
There is a need to create N new point-to-point circuits for each new node added in
todays SONET network. Providing a topology discovery mechanism that each node
goes through on startup eliminates this drawback.
Ring protection
One of the key objectives of the new Packet Ring technology is to provide SONET
comparable protection switching mechanism. This mechanism can co-exist with the
SONET Automatic Protection Switching (APS) mechanism.
Broadcast and Multicast Support
The nodes on a packet ring simply forward the multicast/broadcast packet until it is
stripped out of the ring by the source. Thus on a packet ring multicast and broadcast is
supported by transmitting only one copy of the packet.
4. Packet Ring Applications
Packet ring technology can meet the needs of many service providers. It is helpful
anywhere data transport over a ring is needed and resiliency and bandwidth sharing
are also essential. One example is a metro service provider who wants to provide data
transport services without the SONET overhead. Packet rings can fit ideally in such
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cases. Here a Packet ring can serve multiple buildings in a given geography. With such
a solution in place the Metro service provider can sell protected bandwidth with < 50 ms
failover to the customers. The fairness algorithm ensures that all nodes on the rig get a
fair share of the bandwidth preventing a single node from hogging all theavailable
bandwidth.
5. Packet Ring standards
The IEEE 802.17 RPR working group is developing a standard that will define a Resilient
Packet Ring Access protocol. The working group has been approved and a plenary
meeting was held in March 2001. Some of the goals of this working group are
n Support for dual counter rotating rings
n Full compatibility with IEEEs 802 architecture as well as 802.1D, 802.1Q and 802.1f
n Sub 50ms fail-over
n Destination stripping of packets for Spatial Reuse
n Adoption of existing physical layers
A lot of debate in the standards organization is centered on defining the CoS and QoS
support required from RPR. Vendors have a widely divergent view of the extent to which
traffic shaping, differentiation, congestion control and CoS related functionality need to be
supported and standardized by the RPR working group.
Apart from the above, the standards organization is also working towards defining the
Framing and encapsulation, protection and fault recovery mechanisms, performance
management and Fault isolation, topology discovery support required for RPR.
The draft standards are to be ready by November 2002 and the final standards will be
formalized by March 2003. To support and supplement the working group a RPR alliance
has been created. This is a group of interested companies who are co-operating to
promote this standard.
6. Pre standard development
Fiber rings are extremely common in the metro-networking environment. The time is ideal
for a transport technology that exploits benefits of ring topology and is also easy to use with
Ethernet and SONET technologies. Due to the preliminary schedule and such benefits of
RPR technology, it is granted that vendors will start shipping pre standard products.
Many vendors are veering towards pursuing some form or other of the existing SRP
standards (RFC 2892) to provide transparent bridging functionality within the ring. The
RFC 2892 has also won support from chip vendors such as Conexant for pre-standard
implementation.
In-spite of the support from various vendors, the RFC by itself does not address some
crucial aspects required for providing intra-ring and multiple ring transparent LAN bridging.
The RFC 2892 was evolved to support routers in a ring configuration and treats each ring
as a separate subnet with a (virtual) shared media. As such address resolution
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required between the layer 3 IP address and the SRP Mac layer address is similar to the
address resolution required between the layer 3 IP address and the Ethernet MAC layer
and is carried out using the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP).
This address resolution need not extend beyond the subnet (ring). In this routing solution
packets are routed between rings at layer3.
RFC 2892, therefore, does not concern itself with support for multiple interconnected
rings at layer2. It does not define either the encapsulation technique for carrying Ethernet
traffic within RPR frames, or the protocol to be used for resolving Ethernet address to
SRP MAC address. However the RFC 2892 does provide a robust sub-50msec fault
recovery protocol for a packet ring. The RFC 2892 Intelligent Protection Switching is
broadly based on SONET BLSR concepts, such as protection event hierarchy, wait to
restore etc and behaves in a very similar fashion. The RFC also satisfies the plug and
play feature mandated by 802.17 through its support of automatic Topology Discovery on
the ring. And, even though the RFC does not concern itself with support for all aspects of
CoS, QoS and congestion support, it does support global and local fairness on the ring.
The other packet-ring technology already in the field is Nortels proprietary interwan
Packet Technology.
In conclusion, we believe that RFC 2892 is an essential starting point for a vendor trying
to provide pre-standard packet-ring solution. It is a proven, robust technology and many of
its features are likely to influence the standard. However, it needs to be modified and
extended to support a versatile Layer 2 Transparent LAN solution.
7. Wipros expertise
Wipro has a detailed working knowledge of RFC 2892. We have implemented a modified
version of RFC 2892 (including Topology Discovery, Fairness Algorithm and Intelligent
Protection Switching). Wipro has helped clients in extending & implementing the RFC
2892. The extended RFC 2892 being implemented by Wipro supports a) encapsulation of
Ethernet Frames while on the ring, b) providing either Ring Steering or Ring wrapping
under fault scenarios c) MAC address-SRP address interworking. A Ring-Hardware
simulator was developed to thoroughly test out the protocol code in a Windows NT
environment under various ring conditions. The GUI provides the facilities to trigger
various ring conditions such as Signal Fail, new node creation on the ring etc. The
protocol code which is OS and Hardware independent, will be later ported on to the
target hardware.
Conclusion
Wipros extensive experience in related technologies like SONET BLSR/UPSR, bandwidth
management, fairness and congestion control, routing technologies (OSPF and MPLS
etc), Gigabit Ethernet, RTOS and FPGA/ASIC/Board design effectively complement the
Packet Ring Technology expertise.
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This gives us an in-depth understanding of the issues that need to be addressed for
implementing any RPR solution. In addition Wipro is already working on providing a
solution for Layer 2 Transparent LAN Bridging across Multiple rings. (Please refer to the
companion whitepaper RPR for Cascaded RIngs) This makes us an ideal partner for
vendors planning to offer pre-standard or customized RPR solutions and products.
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About the Authors
Pranav Koushik is a Software specialist at Wipro Technologies. Pranav has over 7 years
of experience in broadband transport technologies and his area of work currently includes
embdedded software for Optical networking products.
Surbhi Sinha is a Consultant at Wipro Technologies and specialises in Optical
Networking solutions. Surbhi has been with Wipro for the past 8 years.
Contact Us
if you need to contact us regarding any clarification of feedback, mail us at
info@wipro.com
Table 1: Acronyms and Definitions
APS Automatic Protection Switching
CoS Class Of Service
DWDM Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing
IP Internet Protocol
LAN Local Area Network
MAC Media Access Control
MAN Metro Area Network
MPLS Multi Protocol Label Switching
POS Packet Over SONET
QoS Quality Of Service
RPR Resilient Packet Ring
TDM Time Division Multiplexing
SONET Synchronous Optical Network
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About Wipro
Wipro Technologies is a part of Wipro Limited (NYSE:WIT) and is a leading global provider
of high-end IT solutions. The IT solutions provided include application development
services to corporate enterprises and product engineering services to technology
companies. The company's top clients include Nortel, Cisco, Canon, Fujitsu, Microsoft
and Alcatel, to name a few.
With over 10000 consultants Wipro integrates people processes and technologies to
deliver innovative solutions that enable implementation of product development strategies
efficiently and cost-effectively. Wipro is also the first IT services company in the world to
achieve the highest level of quality certification, the SEI-CMM Level 5. Wipro currently runs
large development facilities for industry leaders and start-ups alike, and has more than
4000 consultants focused on communication hardware and software alone.
Wipro in Telecommunication Technologies
Wipro solutions for the technology sector are in areas of Optical networking, Data
networking, Wireless networking, Voice switching, and Network Management systems.
These solutions span across a vast spectrum of technologies in the hardware (VLSI,
FPGA, Board design, DSP, RF), embedded software (VxWorks, EPOC, pSOS) and Network
Management software (CORBA, UML, SNMP, TL1) and many more. With over 10 years of
experience in the telecom space, Wipro offers engineering services like architecting,
design, development, verification, validation and maintenance.
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