PDN043 Carrier Ethernet Services Explained Pre Course Reading v4 1

Carrier Ethernet Services Explained
1
On completion of the 5-day Carrier Ethernet Services Explained course,
participants will have the opportunity to sit the MEF Carrier Ethernet Certified
Professional (CECP) examination.

The exam is a 1 hour 45 minute multiple choice paper containing 80 questions.
The exam is a closed book exam with no access to other materials being
permitted.

This pre-course reading material forms part of the course material and the
participant is required to read this material before attending the course. In
addition to this pre-course reading material, the participant should also have an
awareness of at least some of the following transport technologies :

SONET/SDH
MPLS
GMPLS
MPLS VPWS
MPLS VPLS
MPLS-TP
OTN
WDM
DSL
HFC
PON
WDM PON

It is suggested that if you feel your knowledge of the above is lacking, that you
should research these transport technologies to gain at least, a basic
understanding of each.

It is also suggested that you complete some research of the MEF specifications
and presentations that can be found on the MEF website:

www.metroethernetforum.org

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The Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) is the defining body for Carrier Ethernet. It is a
global industry alliance responsible for the acceleration of the worldwide adoption
of Carrier Ethernet services and networks.

The MEF develops Carrier Ethernet Technical Specifications and Implementation
Agreements to promote interoperability and to promote the worldwide deployment
of Carrier Ethernet.
6
The Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) was formed in 2001 with the purpose of
developing ubiquitous business services for Enterprise users. At that time the
services were mainly those of Enterprise LAN interconnect over metropolitan
networks using optical fibre cable.

Since that time the scope of the MEF has expanded and there are now a number
of committees that have responsibility for standards, education, and compliance.

The Technical Committee is responsible for the development of technical
specifications, implementation agreements, test specifications and position
statements.

The Marketing Committee is responsible for the development of presentations,
white papers and videos to promote the adoption of Carrier Ethernet services and
equipment. It participates in major events and marketing programmes, and in the
development of toolkits for service providers.

The Certification Committee is responsible for defining and facilitating both
vendor and service provider certification programmes to ensure compliance of
equipment and services to MEF specifications. It is not directly involved in testing
compliance but has an approved Certification Lab for this purpose. The latest
certification addition is that of the MEF Carrier Ethernet Certified Professional.
7
Metro Ethernet services have grown in popularity and hence the MEF-defined
services have expanded to include worldwide services carried over national and
global networks, and access networks. This provides greater availability of
services to the end users over a wider range of access technologies.

Economy of scale is supported due to the convergence of business, residential
and wireless networks sharing the same infrastructure and services. This permits
rapid deployment of scalable business applications.

The adoption of the certification programme has been an important driver for the
expansion of the services to Carrier Ethernet.

The expansion to Carrier Ethernet is achieved whilst retaining the cost model and
simplicity of Ethernet.
8
The purpose of the MEF Certification Programs is to accelerate the deployment
of Carrier Ethernet in the access, metropolitan, and wide area network.

The two main areas of certification are manufacturer certification and service
provider certification.

The manufacturer certification aims to assure compliance of MEF Carrier
Ethernet specifications for equipment supplied to service providers. Service
provider certification assures compliance of Carrier Ethernet services to MEF
specifications and to assure service level agreements and service level
specifications.
9
The latest addition to the Certification Committees programmes is the MEF
Carrier Ethernet Certified Professional (CECP) examination and is designed to
enable Carrier Ethernet personnel to demonstrate and validate their knowledge
and Carrier Ethernet expertise.

The programme is targeted towards product managers/planners, sales
managers/engineers, and technical marketing representatives and serves to
enable them to demonstrate their ability to promote, define, market and sell
Carrier Ethernet products and services.
10
Carrier Ethernet is defined by the MEF from the user perspective, as a
ubiquitous, standardized, carrier-class service and network defined by five
attributes that distinguish it from familiar LAN-based Ethernet. The service a user
purchases will be defined in a Service Level Agreement.

Carrier Ethernet from the service providers perspective is a set of MEF-certified
network elements that connect to transport Carrier Ethernet services for all users
locally and globally. The network elements may be wholly within the service
providers network or may span multiple operators networks. The services may
be carried over physical Ethernet networks or over other legacy transport
technologies.
11
Carrier Ethernet to the vendor is the provision of external interface equipment
functionality that provides UNI and ENNI functionality that can be deployed in the
implementation of Carrier Ethernet services. This equipment will comply with the
requirements and features specified in the MEF technical specifications and test
suites and will therefore be able to be evaluated for compliance to the MEF
specifications and thus aid interoperability.
12
The MEF has defined five attributes to distinguish Carrier Ethernet services from
familiar LAN-based Ethernet.

These attributes are:
Standardized Services
Scalability
Reliability
Quality of Service
Service Management

These attributes will be defined and described in a later chapter.
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Traditional carrier networks were voice oriented and carrier data an afterthought.
Voice network design evolved within government controlled PTTs where
maintaining stable reliable infrastructure was key and there was little motivation
to develop technology quickly. Price of services was controlled and PTTs had
market monopoly so there was little motivation to improve business efficiency.
This started to change in the 1980s with the breakup of AT&T in the USA and the
privatization of telecommunications out of PTTs.

In some countries governments were very protective of the status quo and simply
nominally changed the ownership to make the PTT a privately owned institution.
They often included a golden share ensuring political control remained within
government hands. However over time these institutions have become more
independent and commercially aware.

With the creation of competitive markets by allowing competition from new
commercially independent carriers and between countries the market has
substantially changed. The growth of the Internet has cemented these changes.

Today data is the main business. Within the customer site Ethernet is the network
of choice. Deploying Ethernet within the carrier network also simplifies the
network and makes it cheaper. Even the old voice networks are evolving to
replace carrier technologies with new generation designs based upon Ethernet
and IP.

16
Price and speed are the two key drivers of growth. The price of interfaces used
within carrier services have always been high because the demands for high
reliability implied designs with internal management and redundancy.

However the growth of speed in the field of communications driven by Moore's
Law has changed the dynamic. This increasing density of micro-integration in the
technology has allowed computer system based interfaces to grow in speed
much faster than Telecom Interface standards, and adding greater redundancy by
duplication of some functions has even enabled carrier class levels of reliability
too.

Moore's law describes a long-term trend in the history of computing hardware.
The number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated
circuit doubles approximately every two years. This trend has continued for more
than half a century and is expected to continue until 2015 or 2020 or later.
Moore's law describes a driving force of technological and social change in the
late 20th and early 21st centuries. His prediction has proved to be uncannily
accurate.
17
The per port cost of Ethernet ports has made a big impact. A reduction in the per
interface cost of connect devices with Ethernet over traditional SONET/SDH
today now means this migration can result in 90% reduction in some case so
large that the whole design approach can change and make cost reductions.

Indeed the price of placing gigabit Ethernet ports on board PC motherboards is
now so low, few new desktop computers are produced without them.

Looking back to the 1990s, SONET and ATM interfaces ran at thousands of
dollars per port and have changed little in all this time. It is no surprise therefore
that Ethernet now leads the way to the future.

18
Ethernet started its life as a 10 Mbit/s LAN technology using 0.4 inch thick yellow
coaxial cable in 1979.

It has evolved over time to include multiple cable types, extended speeds and
complexity until now it is possible to build short, medium and long distance
services with a range of features and reliabilities with the technology.

Today, Ethernet can be used to provide:
Full duplex 10G point-to-point optical links
Ethernet in the first mile DSL access
Passive optical GEPON networks
Metro Ethernet networks
Wireless Ethernet hot spots

19
The early LAN interfaces were rather clunky by modern standards and required
careful installation planning in offices. Early 10BASE-5 systems, often called
Thicknet, took experience to install well. However even from the start, the per
interface cost was low when compared with Telecom interfaces.

In 1979 State-of-the-art 9.6 kbps modem links were being installed to
interconnect systems in the UK. Each link then cost 4500 per end to connect
the 4-wire modems. In 1980 the first Ethernet was installed in Europe and the
price for the first 24 interfaces worked out at 500 each interface. Even from the
start this was a big price reduction and a major (1000 times) increase in speed.

20
IEEE 802 standards generally provide the standardization of protocols and
services at the physical and data link layers.

The physical layer defines the transmission of bits and the hardware elements of
connection.

The data link layer is responsible for the transmission of frames of data, error
detection within those frames and the sharing of access to the physical
transmission medium.

21
While the IEEE are the original owners of Ethernet as a technology, other
standards bodies have now taken an interest.

The IEEE views Ethernet as a set of LAN/MAN standards
The ITU-T views Ethernet as several packet-based OSI layers
The MEF views Ethernet as a service provided to a customer
The IETF views Ethernet as an IP-helper

22
The IEEE 802 committee forms working groups to work on extensions and new
technological ideas. Extensions and options are identified using single or double
letter codes after the number for the working group. The slide illustrates some of
these extensions.

23
Ethernet and 802.3 are subtly different. It is the 802.3 standard that has been
extended to multiple versions not Ethernet!

24
The recent fast growth in diversity of physical technology options has delivered a
range of physical interfaces and higher speeds. Some options deliver increased
range too.

So we started with 10 Mbps with range limited to 2.5 km on thick copper coax
and can now get speeds up to 10 Gbps on single mode fibre with ranges
exceeding 70 km without a repeater.
25
Notation for different types of Ethernet specification has evolved over time. This
tells us in shorthand form the speed, kind of signalling used and the kind of
interface cabling used. If the last element is numeric then it is coaxial cable.
26
The most widely used form of Ethernet today in LANs uses unshielded twisted
pair (UTP) which evolved from telephone wire.

27
All communications has evolved over time. However the drivers of this evolution
can be classified into three groups.

Firstly our need for compatibility with existing services has meant that some
technology characteristics are controlled by history. Where we can recognise
limitations that exist because of historic evolution, it is possible to discard these
limitations and build systems in new ways.

Limitations based upon physics, such as the speed of light, or those based upon
the laws of nature such as Shannons Limit cannot be changed. Recognising
where the limitations come from is important to engineers because they can then
concentrate their efforts upon working in areas where innovation is possible
rather than in areas where changes cannot be readily realised ever.

Sometimes limitations come from commercial interest patents and market
dominance. These can be changed with time but these changes are much less
easy to predict. The dominance of Microsoft Windows in the desktop operating
system market is an example of this. However how easy was it to predict the
sudden change in the dominance of Nokia in the mobile handset market in the
1990s with the sudden rise in popularity of the Apple iPhone?

28
In 1948 Claude Shannon wrote two key papers in information theory and with
work that followed then from Ralph Hartley, the ShannonHartley theorem was
born. It is an application of the noisy channel coding theorem to the archetypal
case of a continuous-time analogue communications channel subject to
Gaussian noise.

The theorem establishes Shannon's channel capacity, a bound on the maximum
amount of error-free digital data (that is, information) that can be transmitted over
such a communication link with a specified bandwidth in the presence of the
noise interference, under the assumption that the signal power is bounded and
the Gaussian noise process is characterized by a known power or power spectral
density.

Considering all possible multi-level and multi-phase encoding techniques, the
ShannonHartley theorem states that the channel capacity C, meaning the
theoretical maximum rate of clean (or arbitrarily low bit error rate) data that can
be sent with a given average signal power S through an analogue communication
channel subject to additive white Gaussian noise of power N, is :
C=B log2 (1+S/N)

In approximate terms this is one third of the bandwidth times the SNR in dB.

29
It is this massive bandwidth that makes fibre optic communications the favourite
for future bulk communications. The question is not whether Fibre systems will
dominate carrier Ethernet it is just how soon. Also will the massive bandwidth and
low price compared with copper mean that even domestic and LAN
communications will eventually move the same way?

30
Communications Theory and Shannons Limit have shown us that Noise is one of
the two keys to communication speed. Optical physical systems deliver the
lowest noise options and so inevitably must dominate the future of cabled
systems.

31
At 100 Mbps existing copper is a convenient means of connecting LAN services.
Optical versions allow us to build carrier connections over longer distance.
32
There are advantages in delivering Ethernet over fibre. The fibre is immune to
radio frequency interference and electromagnetic interference, it has greater
bandwidth therefore giving greater capacity and it gives better signal to noise
ratio. Different laser wavelengths can be used to give short range, long range and
extended reach fibre cable coverage.
33
The protocol model for the gigabit Ethernet standard is highlighted in the slide.
Much of the existing Ethernet functionality is retained but a few additional
elements are introduced and of course a variety of different PHY are defined.

Between the reconciliation entity and the PHY, the Gigabit Media Independent
Interface has been defined.

34
Extending the speed particularly over optical interfaces is easy so gigabit optical
services offer very competitive options to carriers. However as speed increases
above this level the cost of the end equipment starts to rise at an increasing rate.
The difficulty of squeezing increases in power of signals into the small sizes
required in single mode fibre makes precision manufacture and good cooling vital
parts of these designs. This adds cost at least for now.
35
The reference model for the 10 Gigabit Ethernet standard is highlighted in the
slide.

This model caters for LAN and WAN PHY interfaces. The interface between the
reconciliation entity and the PHY is called the XGMII interface.

The LAN PHY uses 8B/10B coding but the WAN PHY makes use of the 64B/66B
coding scheme. The WAN PHY has an additional entity known as the WAN
Interface Sublayer (WIS), the purpose of which is to support features for OAM
that may be required on the WAN link.

36
Further extension from 1Gbps to 10 Gbps may increase the interface cost by as
much as 5 times or more. While still showing an improvement in price per bit per
second, this may be less easy to justify in all circumstances. We may be paying
for speed we do not yet need.

Selection of the right speed to match the service and sizing services accurately
are becoming key to carrier designs.

37
The table highlights more of the current 10Gbps standards.
38
Lets look at some examples of differences in the price of Ethernet end
equipment.

Here three 10 Gbps interfaces differ in price per end between 737 (about $1100)
for a short range multimode device at 850 nm up to 9531 (about $14,000) an
end for a range of 80km over single mode fibre.

39
Example using Force 10.
40
Notice that these 1Gbps devices are dramatically cheaper than the 10 Gbps
devices on the previous slide.

Short range systems are one eighth of the price, and long range systems
perhaps one fifth.

41
Notice for this range of DWDM XPF units there are 39 supported wavelengths.
Matching units would need to be provided at each end of the systems

42
40 Gigabit Ethernet (40GbE) and 100 Gigabit Ethernet (100GbE) are standards
developed by IEEE P802.3ba Ethernet Task Force which started in November
2007, and ratified in June 2010. These standards support sending Ethernet
frames at 40 and 100 gigabits per second. Previously, the fastest published
standard was 10GbE.

40 Gigabit Ethernet is not compatible with current 40 Gigabit solutions which
carry four 10 Gigabit signals into one optical medium using DWDM. Optical
domain 100 Gigabit and 40 Gigabit Ethernet use a CWDM approach with four 25
Gigabit or 10 Gigabit channels.

The slide highlights the objectives of the standard.
43
The table highlights the PHYs that are being standardised.

The 100 m OM3 objective is being met by parallel ribbon cable with 850 nm
10GBASE-SR like optics (40GBASE-SR4 and 100GBASE-SR10).

The 10 m backplane objective is being met with 4 lanes of 10GBASE-KR type
PHYs (40GBASE-KR4).

The 10 m copper cable objective is met with 4 or 10 differential lanes using SFF-
8642 and SFF-8436 connectors.

The 10 and 40 km 100G objectives are being met with four wavelengths (around
1310 nm) of 25G optics (100GBASE-LR4 and 100GBASE-ER4).

The 10 km 40G objective is being met with four wavelengths (around 1310 nm) of
10G optics (40GBASE-LR4).

44
EFM is the most recent addition to the Ethernet family of interfaces. This allows
the attachment of Ethernet native connections over single UTP telephone lines at
speeds dependent upon length. It also covers passive optical network interfaces.

45
The four tracks of the 802.3ah task force are highlighted in the slide. This was to
develop EFM for transport over existing copper, over fibre optics, to support
point-to-multipoint connectivity using EPON, and to define Operations,
Administration and Maintenance procedures for Ethernet.
46
As the Next Generation of networks starts to be delivered, new services become
possible. Through the single common interface we see on everything, Ethernet,
we want to access every service. Not just voice and Internet access but TV,
information services and storage.

Why load software onto your computer and store data locally requiring software
expertise to protect the loss of data? Why not store applications and data on the
network too? With networked storage and applications, true mobility around the
network becomes much simpler.

47
Multi-Service access Architecture depends upon the selection of protocols and
technologies to deliver the required services to the user. Services are often
located in a centralized head-end serving users distributed over a wide area
through a high speed core network.

Some services may need to be distributed over several head-end sites in order to
minimize the traffic across the core.

48
All flavours of Ethernet use the same basic MAC frame format. The original 802.3
standards developed for 10BASE5 predated the existence of VLANs limiting the
total frame size to 1500 bytes plus the 18 byte header. There is also a further 8
bytes of preamble used for clock recovery making a total of 1526 bytes.

When VLANs are used a further 4 byte tag header is added and recent practice
may require the deployment of multiple Tag headers. To accommodate this the
standard has now expanded the maximum frame size to 2000 bytes including all
headers although not all implementations support this.

49
In the example, the uppermost frame indicates that IPv4 (0800) is being carried
in the Ethernet frame. The lower frame illustrates the case where the uppermost
frame has been tagged with its VLAN Identity. The VT field with a value of 8100
indicates VLAN tagging and the 2-byte VLAN field will indicate the VLAN Identity.
50
However powerful a network becomes there will be limits on its capacity.

By dividing this into two parts where most of the traffic stays local to each half
and only communication between devices on the two halves needs to pass
between, greater overall capacity is created.

The interconnecting device is called a bridge and a group of many bridges in a
single box is called a switch.
51
When multiple segments are connected by bridges each device listens to the
source addresses of packets on each side and if it identifies in a packet that both
source and destination are on the same side it does not forward the data.
However if the destination address in a packet is unknown or is a broadcast
address (FF:FF:FF:FF:FF:FF) it is forwarded.

A problem will arise however if bridges are used to connect traffic in a loop. IEEE
802.1D 1998 Transparent Spanning Tree overcomes this by building a tree
structure and turning off interfaces that would form loops.

In 2004 this was upgraded to speed up the process and retitled Rapid Spanning
Tree.
52
IEEE 802.1 is a large standard. Likewise, 802.1d which addresses MAC bridges
is also very large and has evolved over time. Some of the elements listed on this
slide will be examined later.
53
IEEE 802.1d/w/s, etc. all use the same Baggy Pants model of service.

All these standards define forms of relay agent for bridging services between
LAN segments. Bridges must work intelligently with little or no configurations
true plug-and-play operation.

Each port interfaces potentially to a different LAN segment and must carry both
data traffic and control protocol frames. The data traffic may, or may not be
forwarded to other ports. The control frames are always passed up to the higher
layer entities which control the operation of the relay.
54
The filtering database will be constructed based upon the source addresses
observed in frames passing over the interface and upon the port state.

The ports have two control variables which may be observed using Network
Management techniques in some cases over SNMP:
The Operational status indicates whether the port is operating correctly and
can function correctly. It can be observed by the manager but not changed.
The Administrative status is a variable that the manager can control and can
force a port to the down state even if operationally working.

55
Data will be forwarded by the relay entity subject to MAC address filtering based
upon tables built dynamically from observed source addresses.

56
The Bridge protocol entity is responsible for updating the port states based upon
the IEEE 802.1d/w/s PDUs which turn ports into a non-forwarding state based
upon the need to remove loops.

The protocol used is known as the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP).
57
Although the concept of a bridge has just two ports, this can be expanded to N
ports in effect formed from N bridge entities interfacing to the same internal LAN,
which in reality is the backbone bus of the switch.

58
To work each bridge must be assigned a unique identification. This is formed
either by configuration or using the address of one of it ports, typically the lowest.

The slide illustrates the functional entities of a bridge.
59
Each interface to a switch is normally full duplex and by ensuring that the
backbone path is greater than the sum of the interface speeds it is possible to
build full duplex non-blocking switches.

60
The Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP) included in 802.1D in 2004 improved
the earlier Transparent Spanning Tree by adding VLAN support and improving
the speed of convergence.

61
The original IEEE 802 MAC address comes from the original Xerox Ethernet
addressing scheme. This 48-bit address space contains potentially 248 or
281,474,976,710,656 possible MAC addresses. All three numbering systems use
the same format and differ only in the length of the identifier. Addresses can
either be "universally administered addresses" or "locally administered
addresses".

A universally administered address is uniquely assigned to a device by its
manufacturer; these are sometimes called "burned-in addresses" (BIA). The first
three octets (in transmission order) identify the organization that issued the
identifier and are known as the Organizationally Unique Identifier (OUI). The
following three (MAC-48 and EUI-48) or five (EUI-64) octets are assigned by that
organization in nearly any manner they please, subject to the constraint of
uniqueness. The IEEE expects the MAC-48 space to be exhausted no sooner
than the year 2100; EUI-64s are not expected to run out in the foreseeable
future.
64-bit Extended Unique Identifier (EUI-64)
The EUI-64 is an identifier that is formed by concatenating the 24-bit OUI with a
40-bit extension identifier that is assigned by the organization that purchased the
OUI the resulting identifier is generally represented as a set of octets separated
by dashes or colons.
According to the IEEE guidelines, the first four digits of the organizationally
assigned identifier (i.e., the first four digits of the extension identifier) portion of an
EUI-64 shall not be FFFE or FFFF (i.e., EUI-64 identifiers of the form
ccccccFFFEeeeeee and ccccccFFFFeeeeee are not allowed) this is to support
the encapsulation of MAC-48 and EUI-48 values into EUI-64 values.

62
In IP multicast, several hosts need to be able to receive a single data stream with
a common destination MAC address. Some means had to be devised so that
multiple hosts could receive the same packet and still be able to differentiate
between several multicast groups. One method to accomplish this is to map IP
multicast Class D addresses directly to a MAC address. The IEEE LAN
specifications made provisions for the transmission of broadcast and multicast
packets. In the 802.3 standard, bit 0 of the first octet is used to indicate a
broadcast or multicast frame.

IANA owns a block of Ethernet MAC addresses that start with 01:00:5E in
hexadecimal format. Half of this block is allocated for multicast addresses. The
range from 0100.5e00.0000 through 0100.5e7f.ffff is the available range of
Ethernet MAC addresses for IP multicast. This allocation allows for 23 bits in the
Ethernet address to correspond to the IP multicast group address. The mapping
places the lower 23 bits of the IP multicast group address into these available 23
bits in the Ethernet address. Because the upper five bits of the IP multicast
address are dropped in this mapping, the resulting address is not unique. In fact,
32 different multicast group IDs map to the same Ethernet address . Network
administrators should consider this fact when assigning IP multicast addresses.

For example, 224.1.1.1 and 225.1.1.1 map to the same multicast MAC address
on a Layer 2 switch. If one user subscribed to Group A (as designated by
224.1.1.1) and the other users subscribed to Group B (as designated by
225.1.1.1), they would both receive both A and B streams. This situation limits the
effectiveness of this multicast deployment.

63
The complexities of networking are not of primary concern to most businesses.
They need technology which is simple to use, cheap to deploy, widely compatible
and reliable to use. Ethernet has proved in practice that it can deliver this and so
has become the interface of choice for most businesses.

64
The switches or concentrators at the edge of the network typically offer many
ports, one per user, and combine traffic destined for ports on other switches into
an aggregated trunk. Typically today the access ports on a LAN are 100 Mbps
and the aggregated trunks are 1 Gbps.
As the number of ports in the whole network grows problems of scale start to
result. Firstly broadcasts must be flooded to every port on the network.
Broadcasts are relatively rare in normal operation but are used about once a
minute to run the ARP protocol. With a network containing 3600 devices each
sending one broadcast per minute every device receives 60 broadcasts a
second. This is enough to slow down normal operation.
One solution is to divide the network into VLANs. Ports are grouped together
and only see traffic from ports on their own VLAN. The bridge function in
switches must maintain tables for each VLAN but the tables are much smaller
and so operation becomes faster.

65
VLAN operation enables a manager to group ports together reflecting the manner
in which they normally interact. Separation into groups improves security.
Communication with devices in different groups should be rare but if required
from time to time can be provided by a router, either separately connected or as
functionality within one of the switches.
66
Three basic mechanisms can be used for defining VLANS. Static VLAN
configuration is undertaken by network management operation or by attaching a
terminal device to the switch and configuring it through a console interface.
Dynamic configuration can be achieved by an application that is VLAN aware and
uses 802.1Q to register and use VLANS.

67
Multicast and VLAN memberships are treated as attributes of an interface. These
can be registered with other bridges in the tree using multicast exchanges
containing attribute values.

The 802.1Q standard documents GVRP.

68
Each VLAN is allocated a 12 bit code and an interface is placed into a VLAN by
assigning an attribute to the interface that is set to the VLAN ID.

69
As each VLAN is registered over an interface, the bridge function constructs a
filter table for that VLAN over the interface.

70
Both 802.1P which provides QoS and 802.1Q which delivers VLAN trunking use
the same 4 byte tag header.

71
802.1P provides priority within the switch at layer 2. Frames sent without tag
headers are taken as priority zero. Priority 1 is considered lower than zero and
might for example be used for disk back-up. Priorities 3 and above are
considered higher than priority zero and deliver precedence within queues inside
the switch. Switches may offer weighted fair queuing for frames identified as
coming from different streams with the same priority value but different
source/destination address pairs.

72
We would like to provide multiple services to customers to match the interfaces
that they demand. Also to provide services using protocols that are most efficient
or which are already imbedded within the network in order to minimise cost. This
means we need a mechanism to deliver multiple services through the same core
network.

MPLS enables us to do this.
73
Often the technologies are operated by different departments of a carrier or by
different carrier organizations.

74
Provisioning a service for a customer can be an expensive, error prone and time
consuming activity.

75
To establish the connection, agreements have to be established between
customer and service provider, and sometimes between service provider and
other network operators. If this agreement and connection establishment is
manual, it could take some time to complete the circuit turn up.
76
A better solution would be to signal the service from end-to-end and automate
provisioning. This is now possible with Next Generation networks deployed using
MPLS/PWE3.
77
Protection delivers the ability to continue to provide service in the event of a
failure of a system service component. It might take the form of alternate fibers,
alternate switch paths or alternate network providers.

The MEF has set out requirements for both protection and quality of service. We
will be looking at these requirements later.

78
The goal of protection is to deliver the re-establishment of the full service within a
known time. The shorter this restoration time the more complex and more difficult
(and thus the more expensive) the protection becomes. Most layer 3 routing
protocols will allow for re-routing within 2 seconds, although it may take up to 3
seconds to notice the actual failure if this depends upon hello messages sent
every second. SDH Automatic protection switching depends upon flag bits
exchanged 8000 times a second and can thus deliver switching must faster,
perhaps within as little as 50 msec. Newer Rapid Packet Ring technologies can
potentially do even better at a price!
79
An important aspect of carrier Ethernet design is maintaining reliability and
service protection levels high enough to meet Service Level Agreements (SLAs).
High value business Ethernet services can only maintain their value by matching
or exceeding the SLA agreed between Carrier and Customer.

80
Initially the MEF was responsible for the definition of Ethernet services at the
Metro Network. This scope has been expanded and now the MEF Specifications
cover the definition of Carrier Ethernet Services across the Access Network and
the Core Network as well as across the Metro Network.

The Ethernet Services ETH Layer indicates Carrier Ethernet services end-to-
end across the Access Network, Metro Network, Core Network and over the
International network.
81
Carrier Ethernet Architecture adds to the LAN implementations of Ethernet,
providing additional protocol features to support different transport technologies,
reliability improvements and OAM.

82
The concept of an Ethernet Virtual Connection allows carriers to deliver a site to
site service connection that can look to the customer like a cable connection
between routers or switches. However instead of the distance limitation of a
normal LAN connection, the EVC could be delivered between locations in
different cities or even different continents.

The actual physical technology used to deliver the service might vary from carrier
to carrier and be very different from that deployed by the customer LAN. However
at the point of interface its presentation would look identical to normal Ethernet
LAN interfaces thus providing a transparent service to the customer.
83
In a practical implementation the UNI exists at the physical interface between
carrier switch plant and customer end equipment. It may for example be at an
RJ45 on a distribution interface provided by the carrier.

The UNI is the demarcation point between the customer and the service provider.
It is typically at a port on an active device which is owned and administered by a
Service provider.

The equipment provided at the UNI must be MEF certified equipment.

84
The physical interface requirements of the ENNI are described in the slide. The
physical layer should be provisioned for Gigabit or 10Gigabit operation. Ideally
more than one physical link should be provided for resilience and reliability
purposes. The MTU size over the ENNI is recommended to be 2000 bytes.

The equipment provided at the ENNI must be MEF certified.
85
The MEF has defined five attributes to distinguish Carrier Ethernet services from
familiar LAN-based Ethernet.

These attributes are:
Standardized Services
Scalability
Reliability
Quality of Service
Service Management

86
The Standardised Services attribute enables a Carrier Ethernet Service Provider
to deliver a range of packet and TDM-based services in an efficient manner.

Carrier Ethernet enables ubiquitous Ethernet services to be provided via
standardised equipment independent of the underlying transport and media used.

The Carrier Ethernet services are based upon the three standardised service
types: E-Line; ELAN; and E-Tree.

Additionally Circuit Emulation Services allows traditional TDM services to be
carried over the Carrier Ethernet infrastructure.

The services must meet the requirements of the customer and so must be
granular in terms of bandwidth provision and quality of service.

All these standardised services should be delivered over a single Ethernet pipe
from the network to the customer.
87
The scale of a LAN and the network of a Service Provider is fundamentally
different in terms of the geographical reach, the numbers of users (or End
Points), and bandwidth.

The dimensions scale collectively, thus making a formidable problem to deliver
and manage large numbers of services.
88
Carrier Ethernet services are expected to support many different applications
including mission-critical applications. The infrastructure therefore has to be
resilient and reliable. Protection mechanisms must be utilised to give end-to-end
and individual link protection. The speed of recovery from failures must be
comparable to that of SONET/SDH equipment or better.
89
Provision of Quality of Service is necessary if Carrier Ethernet is to be viewed as
being comparable or better than technologies such as ATM and Frame Relay,
etc.

Carrier Ethernet supports delivery of critical enterprise applications that are
expected to meet certain performance levels. The performance parameters of
Carrier Ethernet must therefore be quantifiable and measureable if they are to be
included in Service Level Agreements.
90
A Carrier Ethernet Service Provider is expected to manage large numbers of
customers and their multiple services, stretched over wide geographical areas.
The Service provider must have sophisticated capabilities for provisioning,
maintaining and upgrading Ethernet services.
91
For any given service provider delivering multiple services, the current
infrastructure usually consists of parallel or "overlay" networks. Each of these
networks implements a specific service, such as Frame Relay, Internet access,
etc. This is expensive, both in terms of capital expense and operational costs.
Furthermore, the presence of multiple networks complicates planning. Service
providers wind up asking themselves these questions: - Which of my networks do
I build out? - How many fibers do I need for each network? - How do I efficiently
manage multiple networks? A converged network helps service providers answer
these questions in a consistent and economical fashion. It delivers multiple
different services by emulation.
Pseudo Wire Emulation Edge-to-Edge (PWE3) is a mechanism that emulates the
essential attributes of a service such as ATM, Frame Relay or Ethernet over a
Packet Switched Network (PSN). The required functions of PWs include
encapsulating service-specific PDUs arriving at an ingress port, and carrying
them across a path or tunnel, managing their timing and order, and any other
operations required to emulate the behaviour and characteristics of the service as
faithfully as possible. From the customer perspective, the PW is perceived as an
unshared link or circuit of the chosen service. However, there may be
deficiencies that impede some applications from being carried on a PW.

92
93
There are three distinct functions of Layer 2 switching:
Address learning: Layer 2 switches and bridges remember the source hardware
address (MAC address) of each frame received on its ports. They store this
information in a MAC Address Table to enable them to decide how to forward
frames in the future.

Forward/Filter Decisions: When a frame is received at a port, the switch looks at
the destination MAC address and uses this to search the MAC Address Table for
a corresponding mapping for this address to a port. If one exists, the frame is
forwarded out over just this one port. If no entry exists, the frame will be flooded
out on all ports except the port on which the frame was initially received.

Loop Avoidance: If multiple connections between switches are created for
redundancy purposes, network loops can occur. The Spanning Tree Protocol
(STP) is used to prevent network loops whilst still permitting redundancy.
94
When a switch is first powered up, the MAC Address Table is empty, as shown in
the slide.

When a device transmits and the frame is received at a port of the switch, the
switch enters the source MAC address and the port ID on which the frame was
received in the MAC Address Table. The switch, not having any mapping
information for the destination address, will flood the frame out on all ports except
the port over which the frame was received.
95
The slide illustrates the process of address learning and updating of the MAC
Address Table.

1. Host A sends a frame to Host B. Host As MAC address is 0800.460F.38F6
and Host Bs MAC address is 0800.460E.29B1
2. The switch receives the frame on port E0/0 and enters the source MAC
address in the MAC Address Table
3. Since the destination address is not in the MAC Address Table, the switch
forwards the frame out on all ports except port E0/0.
4. Host B receives the frame and responds to Host A. The switch receives this
response frame on port E0/1 and enters the source MAC address for Host B
in the MAC Address Table.
5. A point to point connection is made in the switch between Host A and Host B.
Hosts C and D will not see any frames, nor will their MAC addresses be found
in the MAC Address Table
6. If Hosts A and B do not communicate with each other again within a certain
period of time, the switch will purge their MAC addresses from its table .
96
When a frame arrives at a switch port, the destination address is compared to the
MAC Address Table entries. If the destination address is known and listed in the
table, the frame is sent only to the correct output port. This is known as frame
filtering and preserves bandwidth on the other ports.

If the destination address is not listed in the MAC Address Table, then the frame
is flooded out on all active ports except the port the frame was received on. If a
device answers the flooded frame, the MAC Address Table is updated with the
MAC address of the responding device.

If a broadcast frame is received at the switch, it will flood the frame out on all
active ports except the port the frame was received on.

97
The switch uses the destination MAC address field of the frame to determine
which port to forward the received frame to. As the destination address field is
close to the beginning of the frame, the switch can decide quickly whether to
forward the frame.

Switches usually support one or more frame processing methods:
Cut-through
Store and Forward
Fragment-free

These are methods are described over the next few pages.
98
In this mode, the switch starts to forward the received frame once it has read the
destination MAC address and mapped it to the output port defined in the MAC
Address Table.

It is potentially the fastest switching method, but as the switch begins to forward
the frame before collision detection occurs, the processing mode can incur
overheads.

Collision detection should occur during the first 64 bytes of the frame.
99
In this mode, the switch does not forward the received frame until the complete
frame has been received and it has been checked for errors. The frame is stored
in a buffer in the switch.

If the frame has been received in error, it will be discarded. If the frame is
received without error, the switch maps the MAC address to the output port
associated with the address, or floods it out on all ports if the destination address
is not in the MAC Address Table.

The disadvantage of this mode is that all frames are delayed before a decision is
made when or how to forward the frame. The advantage is that unnecessary
processing is avoided as collision detection will have occurred for all frames.
100
In this mode, the switch waits until the first 64 bytes of the frame have been
received before forwarding the frame to the output port.

This is a compromise between the other two methods, which serves to ensure
that collisions are detected before forwarding the frames onward.

This mode does not provide any check on the frames for errors, so some frames
may be unnecessarily forwarded.
101
On a LAN, devices can be connected to the ports of the switch via UTP or fibre
cable. This provides two wire pairs (in the case of UTP) or two fibres (in the case
of fibre cable) so it is possible for the device or the switch to transmit and receive
simultaneously over each pair of wires. This is known as Full Duplex.

Ports can be configured for Full Duplex or Half Duplex operation. In Half Duplex
operation, the device can send and receive data, but not at the same time.

When a port is connected directly to a single device, it should be configured for
Full Duplex operation to achieve the faster speed of communication.

If a port of the switch is connected through a hub to a number of devices, the port
should be configured for Half Duplex operation.
102
A broadcast domain is a collection of devices which can receive broadcast
frames from any other device in the same domain.

The slide illustrates the concept of the broadcast domain. If Host A sends a
broadcast frame into the switch, the switch will forward the frame out on all ports
except port E0/0.
103
A collision domain is a collection of devices which can transmit unicast frames
capable of colliding with unicast frames transmitted by other devices in the same
domain.

Hubs provide a single collision domain, as any frame received by the hub is
extended out on all ports.

A switch, however, is able to identify which device the frame is destined for and is
able to forward the frame to just the one recipient port. That frame will not collide
with any other frame.

The switch potentially supports as many collision domains as it has ports. The
slide illustrates this concept, where the switch supports one broadcast domain
and four collision domains.
104
The slide illustrates a simple example of a LAN with a physical loop topology. In
the absence of any loop avoidance mechanism such as STP, frames would be
forwarded in a loop from one switch to the other.

If PC 1 sends a broadcast frame to the LAN X hub, Switch A will flood the frame
out on all ports except port E0/0. The frame will be forwarded via LAN Y and will
be received at Switch Bs E0/2 port. Switch B will flood the frame out on all ports
except E0/2. This may cause a collision on LAN X.

Similarly, the frame broadcast from PC 1 will reach Switch Bs port E0/0. Switch
B will flood it out on all ports except port E0/0. The frame will be extended to
Switch As port E0/2 where it will be flooded out on all ports except port E0/2.

This process would repeat, leading to a Broadcast Storm which would consume
unnecessary CPU time and use up bandwidth on the links. Devices on each LAN
would receive multiple copies of the same frame.
105
When PC 1 sends a unicast frame to PC 2 for the first time, neither Switch will
have an entry for PC 2 in its MAC Address Table. Switch A will receive it on port
E0/0 and will flood it out on all ports except port E0/0. The frame will reach PC 2
from port E0/2 of Switch A.

Likewise, the frame received on port E0/0 of Switch B will be flooded out on all
ports of Switch B, including port E0/2. The frame will also reach PC 2 from port
E0/2 of Switch B.

PC 2 will therefore receive duplicates of the same frame.
106
In addition to frame duplication, switches may suffer database instability as a
result of the following:

On receipt of the unicast frame from PC 1, both Switches will map PC 1 MAC
address to their port E0/0.

The frame forwarded to LAN Y from Switch B will be extended to Switch A. The
frame will appear to have come from PC 1, so Switch A will also map PC 1 MAC
address to port E0/2.

This process repeats on Switch B.

Now in each Switch, PC 1 is mapped to 2 ports, leading to database instability.
107
The purpose of STP is to automatically prevent loops in the infrastructure whilst
permitting resilience through redundancy of switches. The protocol is defined in
IEEE 802.1d.

When switches are introduced into the infrastructure, they exchange data with
each other to elect a root bridge (switch) using a special Bridge Protocol Data
Unit (BPDU) which is multicast using the multicast address 0180.C200.000.

This information will cause other switches to stop forwarding frames on some of
their ports so as to create a tree structured topology. This topology will have no
loops that span the whole LAN.
108
There are a number of terms that are used within STP that we need to be aware
of in order to understand the procedures of the STP protocol.

Root Bridge (Switch): one switch is elected as the root switch (remember STP
forms an inverted tree structure). It will be the switch which has the lowest MAC
address associated with one of its ports.

Active Port: Any port which is in working order and which has not been shut
down administratively, is said to be an active port.

Active ports can be in one of two states:
Forwarding State: in this state, the switch ports can send and receive data
frames as well as send and receive BPDU multicast frames.

Blocking State: in this state, the switch ports can only receive BPDU frames. No
BPDU frames can be sent, nor can data frames be sent or received.
109
Root Port (RP): Each switch will have one RP. It will be the port closest to the
root switch, and is used for forwarding data frames and BPDUs upstream to the
root switch.

Designated Port (DP): each LAN segment will have a designated switch with one
DP. It will be used for forwarding data frames and BPDUs downstream.

Non-designated Port (NP): any active port that is not a root port or a designated
port takes the role of NP. The port will be in the blocking state and will only be
able to receive BPDUs.
110
The slide illustrates the concepts that were discussed on the previous slides.

In the slide, Switch A has been elected as the root switch. Both its ports are
designated ports and both are in the forwarding state.

Switch C is a designated switch. One port has the role of root port and the other
the role of designated port.

Switches B and D are non-designated switches. Each has one port in the role of
root port and one port in the non-designated port role.
111
The slide illustrates the actual LAN implementation on the left. The equivalent
tree structure created by STP for normal traffic handling is shown in the top right
of the slide.

The tree structure shown in the bottom right of the slide, illustrates the resilience
provided by the other switches. If Switch C were to fail, Switch D would detect the
failure and start forwarding on port E0/4.
112
When a switch is connected to a network and is powered up, it will transition
through a number of states before entering the forwarding state.

The slide summarises the transition states, describes the behaviour at each state
and the amount of time taken to transit to the next state.

A number of timers are used within STP to control the transitions. These are
identified in the table.

When first powered on all ports of the switch are in the blocking state and so can
only receive BPDUs. After 20 seconds the ports transition to the listening state. At
this time ports can send and receive BPDUs. After 15 seconds, the ports enter
the learning state. In this state, the ports learn MAC addresses but cannot
forward frames (due to database instability). After 15 seconds the ports enter the
forwarding state. The database is now stable and ports are now able to forward
frames to destinations.

A total latency of 50 seconds exists from the switch being powered up to it being
in a stable state and being able to forward frames
113
The Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP) included in 802.1D in 2004 improved
the earlier Transparent Spanning Tree by adding VLAN support and improving
the speed of convergence.

114
In this example the devices have been assigned identifications based upon their
lowest port address. When a topology change is identified they output on every
port a multicast packet giving details of their identity and listen for similar packets
from their neighbors. Identifications are compared and when a device receives a
better (lower) identification it stops sending its own and forwards that received
updating the Root Path Cost.
The Root Path Cost is the cost of the path from the root bridge, in reality if all
interfaces are the same speed it is a hop count.

BPDU Content:
The Protocol Identifier is 0000 0000 0000 0000.
The Protocol Version Identifier is 0000 0010.
The BPDU Type is 0000 0010. This denotes a Rapid Spanning Tree
Flags:
The Topology Change flag is encoded in Bit 1 of Octet 5
The Proposal flag is encoded in Bit 2 of Octet 5
The Port Role is encoded in Bits 3 and 4 of Octet 5
The Learning flag is encoded in Bit 5 of Octet 5
The Forwarding flag is encoded in Bit 6 of Octet 5
The Agreement flag is encoded in Bit 7 of Octet 5
The Topology Change Acknowledgment flag is encoded in Bit 8 of Octet 5
as zero

115
The Root Identifier is encoded in Octets 6 through 13
The Root Path Cost is encoded in Octets 14 through 17
The Bridge Identifier is encoded in Octets 18 through 25
The Port Identifier is encoded in Octets 26 and 27
The Message Age timer value is encoded in Octets 28 and 29
The Max Age timer value is encoded in Octets 30 and 31
The Hello Time timer value is encoded in Octets 32 and 33
The Forward Delay timer value is encoded in Octets 34 and 35
The Version 1 Length value encoded in Octet 36 is 0000 0000, which indicates
that there is no Version 1 protocol information present.
116
By first broadcasting their own identity and then migrating to use the root bridge
identity when lower MAC addresses are found, a single tree structure will
naturally result with optimal speed interconnections. Then only a single path
through the network will result for traffic overcoming the possibility of looping
broadcast and multicast transmissions.

117
Rapid spanning tree protocol enhanced the earlier Transparent Spanning Tree
(TST) by supporting different speeds of operation and the ability to vary timers
and counters. The original might have taken 45 seconds to migrate to a new
topology of operation after a link failure. RSTP can achieve this in 3 to 5 seconds
with appropriate timer settings.

118
Here bridge 111 has become the root.

Bridges that receive more than one copy of the information from the root
compare the root path cost values and select the one with the lowest value as the
interface to use to reach the root. Other interfaces over which copies of the root
identity were received with higher costs are turned off by discarding packets
received. Packets are then forwarded to/from the root port from/to all other ports.

119
In effect the network becomes a tree.

120
A typical topology selected for reliable operation is a ring. This results in a tree
being built while all interfaces function. When one fails a topology change results
and a new tree is built continuing service with the failed interface becoming the
edge of the tree.

121
The original IEEE 802 MAC address comes from the original Xerox Ethernet
addressing scheme. This 48-bit address space contains potentially 248 or
281,474,976,710,656 possible MAC addresses. All three numbering systems use
the same format and differ only in the length of the identifier. Addresses can
either be "universally administered addresses" or "locally administered
addresses".

A universally administered address is uniquely assigned to a device by its
manufacturer; these are sometimes called "burned-in addresses" (BIA). The first
three octets (in transmission order) identify the organization that issued the
identifier and are known as the Organizationally Unique Identifier (OUI). The
following three (MAC-48 and EUI-48) or five (EUI-64) octets are assigned by that
organization in nearly any manner they please, subject to the constraint of
uniqueness. The IEEE expects the MAC-48 space to be exhausted no sooner
than the year 2100; EUI-64s are not expected to run out in the foreseeable
future.

64-bit Extended Unique Identifier (EUI-64)
The EUI-64 is an identifier that is formed by concatenating the 24-bit OUI with a
40-bit extension identifier that is assigned by the organization that purchased the
OUI the resulting identifier is generally represented as a set of octets separated
by dashes or colons.

According to the IEEE guidelines, the first four digits of the organizationally
assigned identifier (i.e., the first four digits of the extension identifier) portion of an
EUI-64 shall not be FFFE or FFFF (i.e., EUI-64 identifiers of the form
ccccccFFFEeeeeee and ccccccFFFFeeeeee are not allowed) this is to support
the encapsulation of MAC-48 and EUI-48 values into EUI-64 values.

122
When a device wishes to communicate with another device for which it knows the
destinations IP address, it must resolve the IP address to the MAC address that
is associated with that address. This is illustrated in the slide, and is achieved via
the Address Resolution Protocol (ARP). The source device sends an ARP
Request as a broadcast frame asking who has the destination IP address. The
identified destination device should respond with an ARP Reply in which it
provides its MAC address for the IP address.

Once the source device has the IP address/MAC address resolution it can now
send its data frame addressing it for the attention of just the device with the MAC
address shown in the Destination Address field, and indicating the source
devices MAC address in the Source Address field.
123
Often it is necessary for a device to send a broadcast frame to all connected
devices. In the illustration, this is achieved with the IP address of 82.116.255.255
(Obviously the first two or three address values represent the network address
identity or sub-network identity. The equivalent MAC address is all FFs as
illustrated.

For some distributive data transfers, it is necessary to transmit to each of a group
of destination devices. This is known as Multicast. A specific range of IP
addresses has been defined for Multicast use. The MAC address structure for
Multicast is illustrated on the next page.
124
In IP multicast, several hosts need to be able to receive a single data stream with
a common destination MAC address. Some means had to be devised so that
multiple hosts could receive the same packet and still be able to differentiate
between several multicast groups. One method to accomplish this is to map IP
multicast Class D addresses directly to a MAC address. The IEEE LAN
specifications made provisions for the transmission of broadcast and multicast
packets. In the 802.3 standard, bit 0 of the first octet is used to indicate a
broadcast or multicast frame.

IANA owns a block of Ethernet MAC addresses that start with 01:00:5E in
hexadecimal format. Half of this block is allocated for multicast addresses. The
range from 0100.5e00.0000 through 0100.5e7f.ffff is the available range of
Ethernet MAC addresses for IP multicast. This allocation allows for 23 bits in the
Ethernet address to correspond to the IP multicast group address. The mapping
places the lower 23 bits of the IP multicast group address into these available 23
bits in the Ethernet address. Because the upper five bits of the IP multicast
address are dropped in this mapping, the resulting address is not unique. In fact,
32 different multicast group IDs map to the same Ethernet address . Network
administrators should consider this fact when assigning IP multicast addresses.

For example, 224.1.1.1 and 225.1.1.1 map to the same multicast MAC address
on a Layer 2 switch. If one user subscribed to Group A (as designated by
224.1.1.1) and the other users subscribed to Group B (as designated by
225.1.1.1), they would both receive both A and B streams. This situation limits the
effectiveness of this multicast deployment.

125
All flavours of Ethernet use the same basic MAC frame format. The original 802.3
standards developed for 10BASE5 predated the existence of VLANs limiting the
total frame size to 1500 bytes plus the 18 byte header. There is also a further 8
bytes of preamble used for clock recovery making a total of 1526 bytes.

When VLANs are used a further 4 byte tag header is added and recent practice
may require the deployment of multiple Tag headers. To accommodate this the
standard has now expanded the maximum frame size to 2000 bytes including all
headers although not all implementations support this.

126
In the example, the uppermost frame indicates that IPv4 (0800) is being carried
in the Ethernet frame. The lower frame illustrates the case where the uppermost
frame has been tagged with its VLAN Identity. The VT field with a value of 8100
indicates VLAN tagging and the 2-byte VLAN field will indicate the VLAN Identity.
127
128
When IP is carried over Ethernet IP addresses need to be resolved to MAC
addresses in order to forward the frames to the correct physical layer destination.
The ARP protocol provides the address resolution.

This protocol is used to locate a destination device (Host or Router interface)
when the destination is on the same LAN as the source.

To pass data on a LAN the MAC address of the destination is required because
LAN protocols do not operate at the Network layer (layer 3) so they cannot read
IP addresses.

ARP is used to find out if the Destination is on the local LAN: if not , the Data can
be sent to the attached Default Gateway Router. The IP address of the Default
Gateway Router must be programmed into the Host but if the MAC address of
the Default Gateway Router is not known (not yet cached) the Router must be
located by its IP address and ARP.

The content of the ARP PDU is encapsulated directly into an Ethernet frame as
highlighted in the slide. Because the PDU is only 28 Bytes in length, padding is
applied to bring the payload of the frame up to the minimum 46 Bytes.
There are scaling issues associated with Ethernet MAC addresses and VLAN
Identifiers. Firstly the address space for VLAN Identifiers is 12 bits long giving a
4096 maximum number of unique VLAN Identifiers. For VLAN tagged service
frames, the customer provides the destination and source MAC address for
identifying the source and destination hosts in the customers sites. This means
that the Providers provider edge equipment may still have to be aware of the
customers MAC addresses (Learning). It was never intended in the initial design
of Ethernet for it to cater for anything other than LAN implementations. If it were
possible to increase the quantity of MAC addresses, how big would the
forwarding tables of bridges and Ethernet switches have to be?

A solution to the problem is to be found in MAC-in-MAC. This uses the simple
concept of encapsulating the original MAC frame including its source and
destination MAC addresses inside another MAC frame which provides its own
source and destination addressing capability. Here the physical MAC address
can be extended to cater for larger numbers of MAC addresses, enabling the
carrier to provide Ethernet service to larger numbers of customers.

The operation of MAC-in-MAC will be described in more detail later in this
chapter.
129
Usual practice in standard LAN environments is for each LAN to have its own
infrastructure comprising one broadcast domain and all stations seeing all traffic.

It may be desirable to have a single infrastructure to support many separate LAN
instances. There are numerous reasons for this, as highlighted in the slide. This
is the concept of Virtual LANs (VLANs), where each LAN instance is a separate
broadcast domain. Separation between VLANs may be based on switch ports,
MAC address, or by assigning a VLAN Identifier (VLAN ID) in the form of a tag.
130
Initially there were proprietary solutions to tagging, until the IEEE 802.1Q and
802.1P projects. These enhancements introduced the VLAN Tag and the concept
of priority. Further enhancements have been made in 802.1ad and 802.1ah.
131
The slide illustrates the format of the VLAN tag defined by IEEE in 802.1Q and
802.1p, which is in the form of a 4-Byte header placed between the source
address field and the Type field of the Ethernet frame.

The first two bytes of the tag provide the Tag Protocol Identifier (TPID), often
referred to simply as the Type field. The remaining two bytes provide the Tag
Control Information (TCI) which comprises a 3-bit priority field, a 1-bit canonical
format identifier (normally 0 for Ethernet), and a 12-bit VLAN Identifier (VLAN-ID )
field. This is the field used primarily by the 802.1Q standard.
132
VLAN-aware switches perform processing of frames using a 5-stage process.

The five stages are:
1. Ingress rule checking: admit all, or admit only tagged frames. Classify every
incoming frame to a VLAN ID. Discard the frame if it is not compliant with the
rules.
2. Active topology enforcement: Checking whether the frame should be
forwarded or not taking into consideration MTU size, whether port is in the
blocked state, etc.
3. Frame filtering: according to MAC address, VLAN ID and filtering database
entry.
4. Egress rule checking: checking whether VLAN ID is in member set, taking
appropriate action on the tag.
5. Queuing for transmission
133
The VLAN ID is 12 bits in length, giving a total of 4096 possible VLAN Identifiers.
This will probably be enough for a customers VLAN deployment, but will that
provide sufficient capacity for a carrier? Almost certainly not.
134
We have seen the introduction of the 802.1Q tag comprising a EtherType field set
to 8100 to indicate 802.1Q tagging and a VLAN ID placed between the source
address field and the Type field which indicates which protocol is carried in the
payload of the frame. But what if we introduce a second 802.1Q tag? This is
known as VLAN Stacking where the initial 802.1Q tag will have a different 802.1Q
tag placed in front of it, thus making it invisible to switching equipment until the
second 802.1Q tag is removed. This is known as more commonly referred to as
Q-in-Q.
135

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