Nortel Networks today announced its MPE 9000 multiservice edge solution along with customer endorsements from Equant, Infonet and TELUS.
This new, MPLS-based product addresses the limitations associated with existing edge routers from companies such as Cisco Systems Inc. and Juniper Networks, according to Nortel, such as reliability, scalability and traffic prioritization at the edge. These issues, Nortel says, are key to service provider deployment of high margin, mission-critical IP services.
Nortel says the box was designed to reduce carrier capex by up to 60 percent with up to 40 percent less equipment to manage at the edge, and providing a pay-back period to carriers of less than 1 year. It can consolidate multiple traffic types, including ATM, frame relay, IP, Ethernet, as well as VoIP and wired and wireless networks.
In a related announcement today, Equant confirmed that it has begun trials of MPE in its lab in France. Additionally Telus of Canada and Infonet, a global communications provider with a data network reaching more than 180 countries, have announced their intent to trial the device.
"Yesterday's edge requirement was for the biggest, fastest router," says Sue Spradley, president of Wireline Networks at Nortel. "Today's requirements are ultra-reliability and the ability to support multiple services with the highest performance and cost efficiency. These play to Nortel Networks key strengths."
The MPE 9000 series will be generally available in the fourth quarter of 2004, and is the first product to be announced from a planned family of multiservice IP devices designed around Nortel Networks vision of resilient IP networks.
As discussed in XCHANGE’s May cover story, MPLS is slowly pushing out of core networks to also occupy a key position in metropolitan area networks. The article also mentioned that announcements of new MPLS edge devices were expected in the near future.
Mark Bieberich, analyst in communications network infrastructure group at The Yankee Group, says MPLS is moving from white boards and onto budgets at the service providers, with money being allocated to the MPLS edge.
According to the Yankee Group, there are currently four categories of products that address the multiservice edge.
That includes IP edge routers, which primarily use a Layer 3 control plan and offer 2 to 80gpbs of full-duplex capacity. Yankee says Cisco Systems Inc.’s 7500 and Juniper Networks Inc.’s M40e fall under this category.
The second multiservice edge product type is broadband remote access servers, or BRAS devices. Yankee groups the Juniper E-series, Redback Networks Inc.’s SMS and Nortel Networks’ Shasta boxes under this heading.
A third category offering multiservice edge capabilities is multiservice WAN switches, which primarily use a Layer 2 control platform. Examples here include Nortel’s Passport switch, the Alcatel 7670 and Lucent Technologies Inc.’s CBX 500, according to Yankee.
All these existing products started life with other key functions, but have been upgraded with MPLS capabilities, Yankee says.
Additionally, a new product category called the multiservice edge router has emerged specifically to address the multiservice edge, Yankee notes. These products are deployed primarily for IP/MPLS networks, include an IP/MPLS control plane, today offer 2 to 160gbps of capacity, and support both Layer 2 and 3 services. Products that fall under this category, according to Yankee, include the Alcatel 7750, the Cisco 7600, the Juniper M320, the Laurel ST200 and Tellabs Inc.’s 8800 products.
