Summary Report

Transcription

Summary Report
_______________________________________________________________________
Summary Report
Alcatel-Lucent Triple Play Service Delivery Architecture
(TPSDA) Validation Report
Residential Subscriber and Enterprise Service Scaling
Non-Stop Service Verification
QoS for Triple Play Services
Quality Measurement for IPTV Service Delivery
Isocore Internetworking Lab
Isocore Technical Document
Reference: ITD-12084
Version (v1.1): 02/15/07
Isocore Internetworking Lab
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Alcatel-Lucent TPSDA Performance Verification Testing - Executive Summary
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Alcatel-Lucent TPSDA Performance Verification Testing - Executive Summary
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This summary report presents the results of a comprehensive triple play service delivery architecture
(TPSDA) validation and performance verification conducted independently by Isocore. The test series
focused on an extensive evaluation of Alcatel-Lucent’s feature set related to large-scale residential triple
play deployments with enhanced subscriber management while supporting a very high number of mixed
enterprise virtual private network (VPN) services over a single Internet Protocol, MultiProtocol Label
Switching (IP/MPLS) network.
Testing was conducted with the Alcatel-Lucent 7750 Service Router (SR) and the 7450 Ethernet Service
Switch (ESS). Both products performed exceptionally well under extreme scaling conditions imposed by
the test series. Alcatel-Lucent demonstrated a flexible end-to-end solution for a variety of deployment
methods necessary in increasing Quality of Experience of any subscriber in a large scale triple play
environment.
KEY FINDINGS
The Alcatel-Lucent TPSDA, 7750 SR and 7450 ESS platforms and related triple play feature set
exceeded the triple play requirements set forth by Isocore for this test series. The key findings of the
evaluation include:
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•
•
•
•
•
The base network scaled to 120,000 active subscriber hosts and more than 43,000 enterprise
class Layer 2 and Layer 3 VPN services.
The enhanced subscriber management (ESM) feature set performed the process of subscriber
identification and instantiation of policies and resources across all test scenarios.
Traffic forwarding to all residential and enterprise services were not impacted beyond the
microsecond level when control processor modules (CPMs) were failed over.
The security feature set demonstrated the network was secure and no intrusion attempts were
successful.
The QoS feature set of Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR and 7450 ESS platforms is able to maintain
subscriber Service Level Agreements (SLA) under severe congestion and separate subscribers
at the forwarding plane level.
The systems were stable under considerable stress through numerous iteration and test cycles.
Based on this comprehensive evaluation it is clear to Isocore that Alcatel-Lucent offers a complete endto-end triple play solution. The 7750 SR and 7450 ESS that form the core of the solution support a
scalable mix of residential triple play and enterprise services. The consistency of results produced
through multiple iterations of testing assures the non-stop delivery of all services. The end result of testing
validated that what was presented in the lab is deployable.
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1 TEST OVERVIEW AND FOCUS
As part of its advanced triple play and IPTV certification tests Isocore evaluated Alcatel-Lucent’s triple
play service delivery solution for its ability to meet the strict requirements of a scaled residential triple play
deployment. Isocore’s evaluation focused on Alcatel-Lucent’s TPSDA and the ability of the 7450 ESS and
7750 SR to support scaled residential services. Although residential triple play services were the primary
focus, a highly-scaled deployment of Layer 2 and Layer 3 VPN services was added to the topology to
demonstrate that the network and platforms are capable of carrying both residential triple play services
and enterprise class VPN services simultaneously.
The base network included 120,000 active subscriber hosts and more than 43,000 enterprise class Layer
2 and Layer 3 VPN services. Table 1 provides a summary of the significant scale achieved during the
event. Under these highly-scaled conditions, Isocore performed a thorough analysis of all aspects of
residential triple play service delivery. This included an in-depth evaluation of Alcatel-Lucent’s subscriber
management, hierarchical quality of service (H-QoS), security, subscriber host authentication, highavailability, resiliency feature, and operations administration and maintenance (OAM), as well as a
thorough analysis of a flexible architecture.
Table1: Summary of the Test Results
Description
Capability Validation
•
Network totals
o 80,000 active subscribers
o 120,000 active subscriber hosts
o 80,000 active SLA policies
o 120,000 anti-spoofing filters
o 120,000 ingress and egress queues
o 120,000 ingress and egress schedulers
o 80k 802.1Q VLAN tags
•
•
Network Totals
43,500 total Layer 2 and Layer 3 enterprise VPN services including:
o 2,500 BGP/ MPLS VPNs
o 4,000 virtual private LAN service (VPLS) instances
o 37,000 Point-to-Point Ethernet virtual leased lines (VLLs)
o Including 2,000 Ethernet VLL backhauls terminated into
BGP/MPLS VPN Services
•
Non-stop service verification: Minimal traffic loss to residential
subscribers for duration of 9.92µs – 11.52 µs with high-availability
Traffic prioritization of VoIP, VoD and broadcast TV (BTV) service. No
traffic loss for VoIP, VOD, and BTV traffic under heavy congestion
No packet loss during long duration traffic forwarding tests (10-12 hrs
run)
Residential Service Scaling Number of Subscribers/
Hosts verified on the Triple
Play Setup
Enterprise Service Scaling
With Residential Services
Performance Benchmarking
Highlights of the Triple Play
Setup
•
•
This test was the first of its kind in the industry to focus on validating the ability to deliver a highly-scaled
mix of residential triple play services and enterprise VPN services. The challenge of a test like this is the
multi-faceted and complex nature of the effort. The execution included careful design and preparation and
hundreds of hours of actual testing. The level of stress imposed on the network, architecture, and
systems under test was significant.
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The end result validated that what was presented in the lab is truly deployable. Numerous iteration and
test cycles were performed and the systems were extremely stable under considerable stress. The
related triple play ESM feature set is comprehensive, assuring that residential triple play service
deployments are highly manageable. The systems and architecture can support stringent SLAs per
subscriber and provide the security required for residential services. The high-availability and related
resiliency feature set assured the reliability of the residential and VPN services. In short, the AlcatelLucent TPSDA, 7750 SR and 7450 ESS platforms and related triple play feature set exceeded the triple
play requirements set forth by Isocore for this test series.
1.1
TEST METHODOLOGY AND SYSTEM TEST SETUP
Figure 1 provides an overview of the test network setup. The setup used two, fully loaded 7450 ESS-7s
as broadband service aggregators (BSAs). Each of the 7450 ESS-7s was equipped with nine 10-port
Gigabit Ethernet media dependent adapters (MDAs) and one 2-port 10 Gigabit Ethernet MDA. BSAs
aggregated traffic from directly connected DSLAMs using a VPLS-based TPSDA. Two 7750 SR-12s were
setup as broadband service routers (BSRs) to aggregate the BSAs and support direct connections from
DSLAMs when an aggregation network is not required.
For this event the BSR used a routed TPSDA model for DSLAM aggregation. The BSRs were equipped
with a variety of 10/100/1000 Gigabit and 10 Gigabit Ethernet MDAs. A 7750 SR-7 was used as a
gateway for content delivery. The Agilent N2X Multiservice Test Solution was used as the source for highspeed Internet (HSI), BTV multicast content, vdeo on demand (VOD), voice over IP (VoIP), and signaling
all active subscriber dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) sessions through the DHCP server. All
7450 ESS and 7750 SRs were running SR_OS version 4.0R6. The Agilent N2x also emulated all hosts
on the network.
Emulated DSLAM and Subscribers
DSL
Modem
IP
DSLAM
..
.
25,000 subscribers
45,000 hosts
15,000 subscribers using RHG
(single MAC/IP DHCP)
Routed Aggregation Model
DSL
Modem
Agilent N2X
IP
DSLAM
4 GbE Links
..
.
Emulated DSLAM
and Subscribers
VPLS Infrastructure for
Residential TP Services
22 GbE Links
Emulated DSLAM
and Subscribers
IP
DSLAM
BSR-2
TP Gateway Router
22 GbE Links
BSA-12
..
.
Routed Aggregation Model
Agilent N2X
25,000 subscribers
45,000 hosts
Agilent N2X
BSR-1
Business Services
BSR
4K VPLS, 2.5K L3VPNs,
28K VLLs
BSAs
4K VPLS, 11K VLLs
VPLS Aggregation
Model
Agilent N2X
DSL
Modem
Emulated BTV, VoIP, HSI,VoD
Traffic Source
BSA-11
DSL
Modem
4 GbE Links
IP
DSLAM
10GbE Links
1 GbE Links
BSA (11,12) - 7450 ESS-7
BSR (1,2) - 7750 SR-12
TP Gateway Router - 7750 SR-7
..
.
15,000 subscribers using RHG
(single MAC/IP DHCP)
Emulated DSLAM and Subscribers
Figure 1: Alcatel-Lucent TPSDA Verification Test Bed
Isocore selected the Agilent N2X platform to verify the scalability of the Alcatel-Lucent TPSDA solution
because it met the stringent test requirements put forth by Isocore. In order to execute a test of this
magnitude and collect and analyze the significant amount of statistics generated, automated test
execution was a requirement. Automation was used for all aspects of the test, including highly scaled
DHCP client setup, subscriber emulations, DSLAM emulation, mixed service traffic generation, test
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measurements, statistics collection and analysis as well as media delivery index (MDI) measurements
across tens of thousands of BTV receivers. To further facilitate test execution, a customized GUI (test
manager) was created.
2 TESTING DETAILS AND RESULTS
2.1
RESIDENTIAL TRIPLE PLAY SERVICE DELIVERY SCALING
The objective of the first phase of testing was to perform a detailed analysis of a broad range of
requirements to support scaled residential triple play deployments. These tests included the validation of
scalability, flexibility and robustness of the Alcatel-Lucent TPSDA architecture, triple play ESM and other
related triple play features and components of the 7750 SR and 7450 ESS. This scaled test setup was
used throughout the event for staging, test evaluation, and all test cases that followed, such as HA,
resiliency, QoS, security, and OAM.
To show flexibility of the architecture and feature set, the test was designed to verify Alcatel-Lucent’s
TPSDA ability to support a variety of deployment models. Alcatel-Lucent refers to the flexibility to support
various deployment options as Any Mode of Operation (AMO). The test included the following AlcatelLucent TPSDA AMO models:
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VPLS-based aggregation model
Routed aggregation model
VLAN-per-service model – each service is on a separate VLAN and each triple play subscriber’s
traffic is spread over three separate VLANs
VLAN-per-subscriber model – each subscriber is on a separate VLAN and each triple play
subscriber’s traffic from all three services is carried by a single VLAN
Routed home gateway (RHG) - CPE presents single IP/MAC pair and DHCP session per
subscriber
Bridged home gateway (BHG) - CPE presents multiple IP/MAC pair and DHCP session per
subscriber
Alcatel-Lucent’s ESM feature set automates subscriber identification, classification and policy
instantiation for residential service deployments. ESM is used to identify residential subscribers by
parsing the various DHCP option fields of the authenticated DHCP ACK message offered by the DHCP
server. Once a residential subscriber is identified, it is assigned a subscriber ID, the associated subscriber
SLA and security policies are applied and resources such as queues and schedulers are allocated.
Regardless of whether a VPLS-based or routed architecture is used, the subscriber management
functionality must be transparent. It is clear to Isocore that Alcatel-Lucent has achieved this requirement.
The Agilent N2X signaled and maintained all active DHCP residential subscriber hosts in the network. In
both VPLS and routed architectures, the BSA or BSR performed DHCP snooping on the initial DHCP
request and relayed the request to the DHCP server. The Agilent N2X also emulated the DSLAM
behavior by applying the Option 82 circuit ID, remote ID and Option 60 vendor equipment identifier to all
DHCP requests. When the outbound authenticated DHCP ACK was received on the BSA or BSR, it was
again snooped and the Option 82 fields were parsed to identify the subscriber type and create a unique
subscriber ID per subscriber.
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To emulate real world residential subscribers, three types of subscriber profiles were used. All subscribers
were represented by the VLAN per subscriber model and every subscriber was managed by AlcatelLucent’s ESM. ESM dynamically provisioned each subscriber with a subscriber-ID, subscriber policies,
SLA policies, anti-spoofing filters and allocated the required resources. The three profiles that were used
included:
o Subscriber A – Receiving only HSI and BTV traffic
o Subscriber B – Receiving only HSI, BTV and VoIP
o Subscriber C – Receiving HSI, BTV, VoIP, VoD services
The Agilent N2X was used to source all BTV multicast content. The network carried 400 standard
definition (SD) channels and 100 high definition (HD) channels. For the VPLS-based aggregation model
the BTV content was delivered over a separate VPLS instance as a VLAN per service model. AlcatelLucent’s VPLS implementation supports IGMP snooping, so only joined multicast groups are forwarded to
the end DSLAM emulated by the Agilent N2X. The routed model received BTV content from the routed
PIM domain on the BSRs. Both of these models adhere to the DSL Forum’s TR-101 and TR-102
standards for multicast delivery.
On the subscriber access side of the network, the VLAN-per-service model was used to deliver BTV to
the Agilent N2X emulated DSLAMs. Each of the 52 Gigabit Ethernet access ports joined 125 IGMP HD
and SD channels, representing a total of 6,500 channels of multicast content delivered to the DSLAMs.
Every subscriber on the network received high-speed Internet (HSI) traffic and every type B and type C
subscriber received simulated VoIP traffic. Additionally, 9% of type C subscribers received simulated
video on demand (VoD) traffic. Throughout the test event, traffic flows were used to validate subscriber
state, network stability and network availability. Traffic flows were run repeatedly overnight and
demonstrated low latency with no packet loss throughout the event.
Traffic forwarding verification was performed using the advanced statistics collection ability of the Agilent
N2X. MDI measurements were used to measure the quality of experience (QoE) of the BTV multicast
content received by the DSLAM. MDI measurements included MDI delay factor and MDI media loss rate.
Media delivery index is typically represented by two numbers – delay factor (DF) and media loss rate
(MLR) – DF:MLR. Measured MDI value for the setup was 4.90:0 DF:MLR, indicating low jitter with no
packet loss. Additionally, latency measurements, and packet loss measurements of unicast traffic flows
were made throughout the test event.
During staging and test execution all 120,000 DHCP sessions were established and released many times.
During each cycle all hosts were authenticated to the network, SLA and security policies were applied,
and traffic flows were generated to all subscribers. During removal of sessions, all DHCP states were
released and policies were removed and resources were de-allocated. Many instances of starting and
stopping multicast traffic with thousands of IGMP joins and leaves hitting the network were executed
during all phases of testing. These activities imposed significant stress on the system under test, but at no
time did the systems exhibit any signs of instability or performance degradation.
In order to validate flexibility of the ESM feature set DHCP option 82 circuit-ID, remote-ID as well as
option 67 (applied by the DHCP server) were parsed and used to uniquely identify subscribers. AlcatelLucent’s 7750 SR and 7450 ESS also support the ability to mark DHCP option 82 fields. To add
additional stress, the BSAs and BSRs were configured to overwrite all inbound option 82 fields received
from the Agilent N2X. Isocore spent considerable time evaluating the process of subscriber identification
and instantiation of policies and resources. The ESM feature set performed these functions consistently
during hundreds of iterations and across all test scenarios.
Throughout the test event the network architecture, platforms and ESM feature set proved to be very
stable under considerable scale and stress. Due to the complexity of the event and time constraints,
testing to maximum scale of any particular area was beyond the scope of this event. It was evident by the
systems performance and available resources this test could have scaled higher.
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Table 2 summarizes the performance and scaling results of the triple play residential services scaling test.
Table 2: Results of the Residential TPSDA Scaling Test
Triple Play Residential Service Delivery Scaling
Network Totals
• 80,000 active subscribers and policies
o 50,000 active subscribers and policies for VPLS-based TPSDA
o 30,000 active subscribers and policies for routed aggregation model
• 120,000 active subscriber hosts, anti-spoofing filters, Ingress/ Egress Queues and Schedulers
o 90,000 active DHCP hosts, filters, queues and schedulers for VPLS-based TPSDA
o 30,000 active DHCP hosts, filters, queues and schedulers for routed aggregation model
• 80,000 802.1Q VLAN tags
o 50,000 802.1Q VLAN tags for VPLS-based TPSDA
o 30,000 802.1Q VLAN tags for routed aggregation model
VPLS-Based TPSDA Aggregation Model (Per BSA statistics)
• 25,000 residential subscribers per BSA
o 10,000 RHG with single MAC/IP pair and DHCP session per BSA
o 15,000 BHG per BSA with 2 to 3 MAC/IP pair and DHCP session
• 45,000 active DHCP hosts per BSA
• 45,000 ingress and egress queues per BSA
• 25,000 ingress and egress schedulers per BSA
• 25,000 VLAN tags per BSA
• BTV multicast content delivery:
o Separate VPLS instance used as a VLAN per service model for BTV delivery
o 400 channels of SD and 100 channels of HD multicast content on VPLS service
o 22 GE ports per BSA, 44 total GE ports receiving 125 channel mix of SD and HD content
o Total IGMP joins present 5,500 for the VPLS VLAN per service TPSDA
Routed Aggregation Model (Per BSR statistics)
• 15,000 subscribers per BSR using RHG (single MAC/IP DHCP)
• 15,000 active DHCP hosts per BSR
• 15,000 ingress and egress queues per BSR
• 15,000 ingress and egress schedulers per BSR
• 15,000 VLAN tags per BSR
• BTV multicast content delivery:
o Routed PIM using a VLAN-per-service model for BTV delivery
o 400 channels of SD and 100 channels of HD multicast content on VPLS service
o 6 GE ports per BSA, 12 total GE ports receiving 125 channel mix of SD and HD content
o Total IGMP joins present 1,500 for the Routed VLAN per service TPSDA
• Results
o No traffic loss observed for any of the VoIP, HSI, and VoD services during overnight runs (10 to 12
hour runs)
o Systems demonstrated utmost stability
o Low MDI values 4.90:0 (DF:MLR)
2.2
ENTERPRISE SERVICES SCALING (SIMULTANEOUS LAYER 2 AND LAYER 3
SERVICES)
The objective of this test was to verify the capability of Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR, and 7450 ESS to
concurrently support large scale enterprise VPN and residential triple play services. This test was built
upon the baseline test validated in section 2.1. The test involved building upon the residential service
configuration a mix of Layer 3 and Layer 2 VPN services across the 7750 SRs and 7450 ESSs.
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Table 3 summarizes the results of the scaled enterprise services test. This demonstrates a very high
degree of scaling, especially in combination with the large scale residential triple play deployment. All
configured enterprise services on both the 7750 SR, and 7450 ESS were operational with traffic for all
iterations of the residential triple play test scenarios including multiple overnight runs without traffic loss.
Table 3: Results of the Enterprise Service Scaling Tests
Layer 3/ Layer 2 Enterprise Service Scalability
•
•
•
34,500 Enterprise Services across BSRs
o 4,000 VPLS Services
o 2,500 L3 VPN Services
o 28,000 point-to-point Ethernet VLLs
15,000 Enterprise Services across BSAs
o 4,000 VPLS Service
o 9,000 point-to-point Ethernet VLLs
o 2,000 backhaul Ethernet VLLs terminated at BSRs Layer 3 VPN Service
No Traffic loss observed to any services
2.3
HIGH AVAILABILITY FOR RESIDENTIAL AND ENTERPRISE SERVICES
The Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR and 7450 ESS support an extensive High Availability (HA) feature set which
includes non-stop routing for protocols and non-stop services. In the event of CPM failure the 7450 ESS
and 7750 SR do not lose protocol adjacencies; network routes and all services remain operational. For
residential services this includes maintaining the DHCP states of residential subscriber hosts, policy and
resource instantiation, and multicast membership states.
The test involved failing over an active CPM and verifying the state of all active network protocols, the
residential subscribers, and enterprise class VPN services. Both the 7450 ESS and 7750 SR CPMs were
failed repeatedly during the test. The test was performed with all 120,000 active subscriber hosts and
more than 43,000 VPN services operational and all related traffic flows running. The test confirmed traffic
forwarding to all residential and enterprise services was not impacted beyond the microsecond level when
CPMs were failed over. Isocore confirms the non-stop service and non-stop routing capability of the
Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR, and 7450 ESS.
Table 4: Results of High-Availability Verification
High-Availability Verification
•
•
•
•
•
No loss of any of the 120,000 active subscriber hosts when either a BSR or BSA CPM was failed-over
No loss of any of the 43,000 enterprise services when either a BSR or BSA CPM was failed-over
Worst case traffic (HSI, VoIP, and VoD) disruption period, when BSR is failed – 11.52µs (refer figure 1)
Worst case traffic (HSI, VoIP, and VoD) disruption period, when BSA is failed – 9.92µs (refer figure 1)
Consistent low MDI DF:MLR value - less than 5.05:0.23 for 400 SD channels
2.3.1
RESIDENTIAL SERVICE ASSURANCE OF TPSDA USING MPLS BASED FAST REROUTE TECHNIQUE
This test verified the resiliency of Alcatel-Lucent’s TPSDA using MPLS-based fast reroute techniques.
The goal of the test was to measure the extent of traffic loss experienced by residential and VPN services
when a forced link or node failure scenario was conducted.
Multiple tests of link and node failures were conducted. The worst case traffic loss measurement for an
MPLS fast reroute link failure test was 16.38ms. The node failure scenario involved failing BSR1 (see
figure 1). It was expected that subscribers attached to BSR1 would be lost, but any residential or
enterprise class traffic traversing BSR1 would failover in sub 50ms range. The worst case traffic loss
observed due to BSR1 (node) failure was 16.12ms. No visible signs of performance degradation were
observed on the Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR or 7450 ESS during the execution of link failure and node failure
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scenarios under highly scaled conditions. The systems under test showed flawless failure recovery and
demonstrated high resiliency of residential and enterprise services well below the industry recommended
standards.
2.3.2
PERSISTENCE FOR RESIDENTIAL TRIPLE PLAY SERVICES
The Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR and 7450 ESS supports a persistence feature in which all active subscriber
DHCP states are maintained on the system’s compact flash memory. In the event of a full system reboot,
the system recovers all subscriber state information that was available prior to the reboot. This prevents
subscribers from having to re-establish authentication and reacquire DHCP state to the network.
This test was performed on a 7450 ESS BSA with 45,000 active subscriber hosts. Test traffic was sent to
all active hosts and the node was power cycled. After the boot sequence, all DHCP states were
operational and all traffic flows were re-established without any intervention. This feature greatly improves
the convergence of residential services and prevents a high number of clients re-authenticating to the
network.
2.3.3
TRAFFIC PRIORITIZATION AND QUALITY OF SERVICE (RESIDENTIAL SUBSCRIBER SLA TEST)
The objective of this test was to evaluate the hierarchal QoS feature set of Alcatel-Lucent 7750 SR and
7450 ESS platforms. This test validated the ability to maintain subscriber SLAs under severe congestion
as well as separation of all subscribers at the forwarding plane level. The residential subscriber SLA test
was configured as per Figure 2. All policies and resources were applied by Alcatel-Lucent’s ESM. The
test included 556 subscribers of type C on a Gigabit Ethernet port. It involved all subscribers receiving
VoIP, HSI traffic and 10% receiving VoD traffic, along with the presence of 125 SD and HD multicast BTV
traffic on the GE port. Figure 2 represents the subscriber SLA test setup and traffic load. Throughout the
event all subscribers had ingress and egress SLA policies similar to Fig 2.
SLA Test Setup
Egress traffic toward DSLAM
VoIP CIR/PIR 100kbps
FC=EF
VLANVLAN-1
(sub-1)
VOD CIR/PIR 2.5Mbps
FC=H2
HSI CIR 0 PIR max
FC=BE
Sub-1
Scheduler
CIR 2.6Mbps
PIR 2.7Mbps
GE
VoIP CIR/PIR 100kbps
FC=EF
VLANVLAN-n
(sub-n)
VOD CIR/PIR 2.5Mbps
FC=H2
HSI CIR 0 PIR max
FC=BE
556 Subscriber Type C
1,668 Sub hosts presented by BHG
3 egress queues per sub
Sub-n
Scheduler
CIR 2.6Mbps
PIR 2.7Mbps
VLAN
per
Subscriber
Model
1 scheduler per sub
1,668 total egress queues
556 Egress schedulers total
Test demonstrated no loss and low latency of all priority traffic
MDI of BTV 4.88:0 (DF:MLR)
Figure 2: SLA Prioritization Test Setup
The test represented a Gigabit Ethernet attached DSLAM with a significant number of subscribers and a
comprehensive mix of traffic flows. The measurements were made to verify the ability to prioritize the
voice, VOD and BTV traffic while the egress Gigabit Ethernet port was heavily over-subscribed with HSI
best effort traffic. Figure 3 shows screen captures from the Agilent N2X system showing that AlcatelLucent 7450 ESS was able to prioritize the VoIP and VOD traffic over HSI traffic when the egress access
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link was heavily oversubscribed. Note that the average latency in Figure 3 was measured across the
network including the gateway router, BSR and BSA. Also note that the receive test throughput in Figure
3 includes the additional VLAN tag overhead.
Figure 3: Results of traffic prioritization, Alcatel-Lucent 7450 ESS dropping best effort traffic for
oversubscribed links
There was no traffic loss and latency was low for all high priority traffic. Additionally, measured MDI
values were also very low in the range of 4.88:0.0 (DF: MLR). This test validated that even under severe
congestion SLAs of high priority traffic can be maintained. It also demonstrated the critical requirement for
separation on a per subscriber service basis for residential triple play service deployments.
2.4
TPSDA SERVICE SECURITY FEATURE SET
Alcatel-Lucent’s 7750 SR and 7450 ESS support a comprehensive security feature set for securing
residential triple play services. These tests were designed to verify the security feature set available for
Alcatel-Lucent’s TPSDA. For both routed and VPLS-based aggregation the ESM automatically applies an
anti-spoofing filter to secure each subscriber. The anti-spoofing filter is based on the snooping of the
authenticated DHCP ACK IP and MAC information.
For VPLS-based TPSDA the security feature supports a split-horizon between residential subscribers to
prevent residents accessing one another across the Layer 2 bridged domain. The platforms also support
a MAC pinning feature which prevents a MAC learned on one VLAN from being spoofed somewhere else
in the network. A MAC protect feature is used to secure gateway and other critical MACs learned in a
VPLS domain from being spoofed.
Multiple tests were run to try and gain unauthorized access to the network, to attempt to spoof MAC
learning from various points in the network and to spoof the gateway MAC and create a black hole to the
network. Both IP and non-IP traffic streams were constructed to offer false MAC information to the
network. In all cases the network was secure and no intrusion attempts were successful.
2.5
TPSDA OAM TOOLS
Throughout the test event numerous OAM tools were used to test, troubleshoot and manage the network.
Tools such as OAM service ping, MAC ping, and VCCV ping were used to verify and troubleshoot the
setup. The ability of ESM to identify individual subscribers and allow the operator to monitor the
subscriber hosts state and traffic statistics proved very useful during the tests.
During the tests, the service mirroring feature was also extensively used to troubleshoot and validate the
behavior on the network. A single mirror destination was setup on the 7750 SR and a protocol analyzer
tool was attached. In this way, we were able to mirror traffic from any point in the network back to the
centralized mirror destination. Service mirroring was a critical tool during all phases of the event.
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During the test, TPSDA subscriber host connectivity verification (SHCV) OAM tool was also verified. The
SHCV tool uses a periodic ARP to test the host connectivity emulated by the Agilent N2X. SHCV
periodically monitors the state of a subscriber host and generates an alarm if the subscriber host is down.
2.6
TPSDA SERVICE PROVISIONING AND SUBSCRIBER MANAGEMENT TOOLS
Isocore was presented with a separate demonstration of the Alcatel-Lucent 5620 Service Aware Manager
(SAM) and 5750 Subscriber Service Controller (SSC). The 5620 SAM is a management suite that
provides element management, end-to-end service provisioning and fault management of the network
infrastructure and can be fully integrated into any OSS infrastructure. The 5750 SSC is a tool that
manages residential subscribers and services for any size of triple play deployment. The 5620 SAM was
used during portions of the overall test event and was also included in the demonstration of 5750 SSC.
The demonstration included a basic triple play deployment setup as a case study and presented the 5620
SAM’s intuitive GUI that provides end-to-end provisioning and management of residential and enterprise
service deployments. Examples of testing and troubleshooting with the OAM tools and fault management
applications were shown during the demonstration. An overview of user configurable templates and
wizards was also presented. From the capabilities shown during the session, it was evident that the 5620
SAM can greatly simplify the provisioning and management of both residential and enterprise VPN
service deployments
The Alcatel-Lucent 5750 SSC is a centralized policy control element for managing residential subscribers.
The demonstration showed that the 5750 SSC is integrated with the 5620 SAM, billing systems and
network elements. The SSC offers capabilities such as subscriber authentication and identification,
management of subscriber policies, subscriber web portal, and admission control for VoD services. it also
includes an integrated DHCP server for identifying and authenticating the subscriber to the network. The
demonstration highlighted how the SSC pushed relevant SLAs and security policies to the network based
on the subscription profile created during the demonstration. It further demonstrated how, using a Web
portal, subscribers can manage or upgrade their services allowing zero-touch management of residential
triple play services.
The observations made during this demonstration confirm that with the use of the 5620 SAM and the
5750 SSC service providers can fully utilize the scalability and flexibility of the Alcatel-Lucent TPSDA. The
capabilities shown simplify triple play service deployments through the automation of a broad range of
critical functions and they are an important part of the Alcatel-Lucent residential triple play portfolio.
3 CONCLUSIONS
Based on this comprehensive evaluation it is clear that Alcatel-Lucent offers a complete end-to-end triple
play solution. The 7750 SR and 7450 ESS that form the core of the solution are highly scalable,
extremely stable and provide a comprehensive triple play feature set that is required for any real world
triple play deployment. Both VPLS-based and IP-routed triple play service delivery architectures are
equally sound in meeting residential triple play requirements. Alcatel-Lucent’s support of any mode of
operation for TPSDA provided the flexibility to evaluate different deployment combinations during the test
series. The overall results indicate that the tested solution is one of the most comprehensive triple play
service delivery solutions available in the industry.
The consistency of results produced through multiple iterations of tests conducted, and very large
configurations built to support high numbers of residential subscribers assures the non-stop delivery of
residential and enterprise services. Throughout the test event, the conditions under which these tests
were conducted repeatedly confirmed the reliability of the systems under test. This was evidenced by
uptime of the systems. From the time the equipment was racked, through more than a week of staging
and hundreds of iterations of test setup and tear down and 12 straight days of continuous testing, all
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systems remained operational and stable. All nodes exceeded 21 days of system uptime with the
exception of the two reboots executed late in the test event to conduct the node failure scenario of a BSR
for MPLS FRR and a BSA for the persistence test.
In conclusion, Isocore feels extremely comfortable in stating the scalability and feature richness of
Alcatel-Lucent TPSDA solution and strongly believes, based on certifiable results, that the setup
evaluated during this test series is fully deployable in its current form for delivering comprehensive triple
play services in any network environment.
4 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
AMO
BGP
BHG
BSA
BSR
BTV
CIR
CPE
CPM
DF
DHCP
DLSAM
ESM
ESS
GE
GUI
HA
HD
H-QoS
HSI
IGMP
IP
IPTV
L2
L3
MAC
MDI
MLR
MPLS
OAM
OSS
PIR
QoS
RHG
Any Mode Of Operation
Border Gateway Protocol
Bridged Home Gateway
Broadband Service Aggregation Router
Broadband Service Router
Broadcast Television
Committed Information Rate
Customer Premise Equipment
Control Processor Module
Delay Factor
Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol
Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer
Enhanced Subscriber Management
Ethernet Service Switch
Gigabit Ethernet
Graphical User Interface
High Availability
High Definition
Hierarchical Quality Of Service
High Speed Internet
Internet Group Management Protocol
Internet Protocol
IP Television
Layer 2
Layer 3
Media Access Control
Media Delivery Index
Media Loss Rate
Multi-Protocol Label Switching
Operation And Management
Open Source Solution
Peak Information Rate
Quality Of Service
Routed Home Gateway
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SAM
SD
SF
SHCV
SLA
SR
SSC
TP
TPSDA
VCCV
VLL
VOD
VoIP
VPLS
Service Aware Manager
Standard Definition
Switch Fabric
Subscriber Host Connectivity Verification
Service Level Agreement
Service Router
Subscriber Service Controller
Triple Play
Triple-Play Service Delivery Architecture
Virtual Circuit Connectivity Verification
Virtual Leased Line Service
Video On Demand
Voice Over IP
Virtual Private LAN Service
About Isocore Internetworking Lab:
Isocore has a fully equipped, state of the art, Internetworking Laboratory which conducts technology
validation and certification, as well as product evaluation. The Lab's current focus is on evaluating triple
play deployment solutions including IPTV service deployment architecture validation and design.
Additionally, Isocore is the leader in validation and interoperability of emerging and next generation
technologies such as Carrier Ethernet, IPv6, IP Optical Integration, wireless backhauling and Layer 2/3
Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). Isocore has already verified several solutions and products next
generation network deployments. Major router and switch vendors, Service Providers, and test equipment
suppliers participate in lab activities.
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